China's machinery manufacturing industry can provide complete sets of large advanced equipment, including large gas turbines, large pump storage groups, and generating equipments such as nuclear power sets, ultra-high voltage direct-current transmission and transformer equipment, complete sets of large metallurgical, fertilizer and petro-chemical equipments, urban light rail transport equipment, and new papermaking and textile machinery. Machinery and transportation equipment have been the mainstay products of Chinese exports, as China's leading export sector for successive ten years from 1996 to 2005. In 2005, the export value of machinery and transportation equipments reached US$290.6 billion, 8.4 percent more than in 2004.
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In the 1990s, the automobile industry developed steadily as a key sector. The output increased from 514,000 in 1990 to 2.07 million in 2000. In 2005, China produced 5.705 million vehicles, of which 3.931 million were sedans, and sold 5.918 million, of which 3.971 million were sedans. Automobiles, the high-class consumer durable with the lowest rate of household ownership in China, now show the fastest retail growth rate of any commodity.
To further improve the application level of clean car technology in China, reduce exhaust gas pollution and promote diversification in the ways of powering vehicles, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Advisory Leading Group Office of the National Clean Vehicle Campaign launched the "R&D and application demonstration project for clean car key technologies." The project has already come up with intellectual property rights and products of its own, providing technology support for the demonstration and spread of clean cars. China has developed working prototypes of electric, mixed power and fuel cell sedan cars and coaches. At the Beijing International Hydrogen Energy Congress in May 2005, the fuel cell sedans and coaches developed by China attracted the attention of many international experts; in the Bibendum Clean Car Challenge in October of the same year, China's fuel cell sedans were awarded five As in the seven categories. At present, test demonstrations of electric cars are underway in Beijing, Wuhan, Tianjin, Weihai and other cities. Beijing and Shanghai also undertook the International Fuel Cell Bus Demonstration project supported by the United Nations Development Program and the Global Environment Facility.