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The Chinese government continued to put the safeguarding and promotion
of the people's rights to subsistence and development on the top
of its agenda, and spared no effort to develop the economy, enhance
the comprehensive national strength and improve the people 's access
to subsistence and development. In 2000, China rid itself completely
of the influence of the Asian financial crisis, the national economy
began to reverse the sliding trend, the growth rate obviously went
up, and the GDP reached 8,940.4 billion yuan, breaking through the
US$1,000 billion mark for the first time, marking an increase of
8.0 percent over the figure for the previous year. At the same time,
the GDP per capita exceeded US$ 800, overfulfilling the task of
quadrupling 1980's GNP per capita, and successfully realizing the
second-step strategic objectives of the modernization drive. In
2000, China's overall import and export volume reached US$474.3
billion-worth, or an increase of 31. 5 percent over that of the
previous year. At the end of 2000, the state foreign exchange reserve
reached US$165.6 billion, or an increase of US$10.9 billion over
that at the beginning of 2000. To date, China's GDP has increased
from the 11th in world ranking in the 1970s to the seventh. In the
1970s, the total import and export volume and foreign exchange reserve
ranked 32nd and 39th, respectively, in the world, but now they rank
eighth and second, respectively. China ranks first in the world
in the output of major industrial and agricultural products, such
as iron and steel, coal, cement, chemical fertilizer, TV sets, grain,
cotton, meat and aquatic products. With sufficient commodities,
China's effective supply ability has been greatly improved.
The income of urban and rural residents has gone up steadily, and
their standard of living has continued to improve. The Chinese people
nationwide have jumped from the stage of having enough to eat and
wear to that of living a better-off life. In 2000, the disposable
income per urban resident came to 6,280 yuan, or an increase of
6.4 percent over that of the previous year, in real terms; the net
income per rural resident reached 2,253 yuan, or a growth of 2.1
percent over that of the previous year, in real terms. During the
Ninth Five-Year Plan period (1996-2000), savings deposits of urban
and rural residents more than doubled, and by 2000 had topped 6,400
billion yuan, or an increase of more than five times compared to
what it had been eight years previously. The consumption level has
been constantly improved, and the average annual growth rate of
the volume of total retail sales of consumer goods during the Ninth
Five-Year Plan period reached 10.6 percent.
The structure of consumption has been optimized: The proportion
of the expenditure for clothes, food and daily necessities has decreased
by a large margin, and the proportion of the expenditure for housing,
communications and telecommunications, medical and health care,
culture, education and recreation has gone up rapidly. In 1999,
the consumption expenditure of urban and rural residents, excluding
that for clothing, food, housing and daily necessities, made up
29.3 percent and 21.6 percent of their total consumption expenditure,
respectively, or an increase of 8.2 percentage points and 6.2 percentage
points, respectively, over the figures for 1995. In 2000, the Engel's
coefficient of urban residents (the proportion of food expenditure
in the total consumption expenditure) was about 40 percent, or a
drop of close to 10 percentage points from that in 1995, and a decrease
of 18 percentage points from that in 1978. Meanwhile, the Engel's
coefficient of rural residents was about 50 percent, or a decrease
of about 8 percentage points from that of 1995, and approximately
19 percentage points lower than that of 1954. As for food consumption,
grain consumption has decreased, and that of aquatic products, meat,
domestic fowls, eggs, milk and other foodstuffs related to domestic
animals has increased substantially. At present, for every 100 urban
households there are 116.6 color TV sets, 90.5 washing machines,
86.7 refrigerators, and 30.8 air- conditioners -- close to the level
of developed countries. For every 100 rural households there are
38.24 color TV sets, 24.32 washing machines and 10.64 refrigerators,
increases of 21.32, 7.42 and 5.49, respectively, over the figures
for 1995. Not so long ago, almost no Chinese family owned a household
computer, video camera, microwave oven or VCD player. In 1999, however,
for every 100 urban households there were 5.91 household computers,
1.06 video cameras, 12 microwave ovens and 25 VCD players.
Housing conditions have been continuously improved. The living
space per urban resident increased from 8.1 sq m in 1995 to 9.8
sq m in 1999; and the living space per rural resident grew from
21 sq m to 24.2 sq m. In 2000, 510 million sq m of floor space of
urban residential buildings were completed; and the construction
of rural residential buildings totaling a floor space of 850 million
sq m was completed. Hence, housing conditions have been further
improved.
While improving the people's living standards across the board,
the Chinese government has attached great importance to ensuring
that poverty-stricken people have enough to eat and wear. Since
the initiation of reform and opening-up in 1979, China has engaged
in a large-scale, development-oriented aid-the-poor drive nationwide
in a planned and organized way. By the end of 2000, the incidence
rate of poverty in rural areas had dropped from 30.7 percent in
1978 to about 3 percent. The net income per farmer in the 592 poverty-stricken
counties at the top of the state aid-the- poor agenda, increased
from 648 yuan in 1994 to 1,348 yuan in 2000. More than 97 percent
of the townships in the poverty-stricken areas nationwide are now
accessible by bus and have electricity; and 98 percent of such townships
have small hospitals. The problem of ensuring that the poverty-stricken
people have enough to eat and wear has basically been solved, and
their quality of life has been greatly improved, forming a striking
contrast with the situation worldwide in which the absolutely poverty-stricken
population keeps increasing. The UN Development Program holds that
China's achievements in the development-oriented aid-the-poor work
have provided a model for the developing countries, and even for
the whole world.
Medical care and the physique of the people have constantly improved.
At the end of 2000, China had 325,000 medical centers (including
clinics), 3.18 million hospital beds and 4.49 million medical personnel.
Some 89.8 percent of villages had medical centers, with 1.32 million
rural doctors and other medical personnel. Meanwhile, physical culture
has developed vigorously, a nationwide health-building drive has
been launched, and the physique of the Chinese people throughout
the country has improved greatly. In the past three years, the State
Administration of Sport and all the provinces, autonomous regions
and centrally administered municipalities have invested in the construction
of nearly 10,000 special health-building outlets. In addition, China
has constructed a total of 1,939 health-building projects for the
whole people. All these have provided favorable conditions for the
launching of the health-building drive across the country. In 2000,
the Chinese government set up a people's physique monitoring system,
planning to include the people's physique monitoring targets in
the state's comprehensive social development appraisal targets.
China has mounted the stage of world sport in all its sectors and
joined the front ranks of sports internationally. At the 27th Olympic
Games, held in 2000, Chinese athletes won 28 gold medals, 16 silver
medals and 15 bronze medals, ranking China third in the world at
the Sydney Olympics. In domestic and international games in 2000,
Chinese athletes won 110 world championships, and 14 athletes and
two teams chalked up a total of 22 world records on 30 occasions.
The drastic improvement of the people's living standards has greatly
raised the level of the people's health. The death rate of the Chinese
population decreased from 33 per thousand before 1949 to 6.46 per
thousand in 1999. The people's life-expectancy on average was raised
from 35 years before 1949 to 71.8 years in 2000, or 10 years longer
than that of the developing countries and reaching the level of
the moderately-developed countries.
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