General Economy

Gross domestic product (GDP)

GDP for 2004 was 295.948 billion yuan, up 11.5% from the previous year.

GDP ratio (primary, secondary and tertiary industries)

The primary industry yielded a value added of 60.433 billion yuan, 5.6% more than that of the previous year; the secondary industry, 131.419 billion yuan, a growth of 15.0%; the tertiary industry, 104.096 billion yuan, a growth of 10.7%. The proportion of the three sectors is 20.4: 44.4: 35.2.

Revenue

Provincial revenue was 66.63 billion yuan, an increase of 20.2% over the previous year.

Consumer price index (CPI)

CPI was up 6.0% from the previous year.

Investment in fixed assets

Fixed asset investment was valued at 133.1 billion yuan, up by 30.3% from the previous year.

Major Industries

Agriculture

In 2004, the province's total grain output was 15.095 million tons, an increase of 2.6% from the previous year.

Industry

The industrial added value totaled 105.336 billion yuan, an increase of 13.9%.

High-tech

1 high-tech development zone at the national level and 3 at the provincial level were set up in 2004. The year also witnessed the establishment of 3 key high-tech enterprises.

Construction

Its added value was 26.083 billion yuan, up by 19.9%.

Transportation

The annual volume of goods handled through various modes of transport was 62.889 billion tons, 5.5% up from the previous year while annual passenger flow reached 31.783 billion, 20.6% up.

Postal services

The annual turnover of postal operations totaled 817 million yuan, 4.0% down from the previous year.

Telecommunications

The annual turnover of telecom services was 20.37 billion yuan, 34.4% up from the previous year.

Retail

The annual turnover from retail sales reached 88.487 billion yuan, an increase of 13.1% from the previous year.

Tourism

Revenue from tourism totaled 36.927 billion yuan, up by 20.4%.

Continued Effects of Market Reform

Imports & exports

The annual value of imports and exports totaled US$3.75 billion, an increase of 40.4% from the previous year.

Economic and technological cooperation

Overseas project and labor contracts signed during the year, totaling 85, were valued at US$316 million, up 2.7% from the previous year. Business turnover for the year totaled US$336 million, an increase of 37.8% from the previous year.

Foreign investment

Foreign direct investment realized in monetary terms was US$142 million, up by 68.8% from the year before.

Urban Construction and Management

Road transport

The year saw the construction of 98.38 km of express highways, and the construction of 3,000 km of rural highways linking 247 villages.

Social Undertakings

Science and technology

The R&D input for the year stood at 1.26 billion yuan, 14.5% up from the previous year.

Education

There are 43 institutions of higher learning in the province. The number of students enrolled during the year stood at 75,000. A total of 192,700 people got rid of illiteracy.

Culture

The province had a total of 117 professional performing organizations, 143 cultural centers, 149 public libraries, and 28 museums at the end of the year.

Public health

There were a total of 9,436 medical and healthcare institutions equipped with 71,200 beds and staffed with 113,900 medical professionals and technicians at the year-end.

Sports

Athletes from the province won 4 golds and 7 silvers in international competitions and 47 golds and 44 silvers in national games.

Welfare and aid

Various welfare units across the province were equipped with 19,100 beds and put up 32,000 homeless and vagrant people during the year. There were 709 urban community service facilities at the end of the year. The funds raised through selling welfare lottery totaled 195 million yuan in 2004. Public donations totaled 56.69 million yuan.

Poverty relief

The year saw a reduction of 131,000 people living in absolute poverty. They began to have enough food and clothing. A total of 355 township hospitals and 500 village clinics in border areas were built or renovated during the year. Some 1.01 million of rural population began to have easier access to drinking water. A fund of 562 million yuan was raised to provide 650,000 poor urban residents with minimum living allowances.

Population, Employment, Social Security and Living Standards

Population

The birth rate in 2004 was 15.6‰, while the mortality rate was 6.6‰. The natural growth rate of the population stood at 9.0‰. At the end of the year, the total population stood at 44.152 million.

Employment

The employed population stood at 23.68 million at the end of 2004, an increase of 150,000 from the previous year-end. A total of 4,484 laid-off workers got reemployed during the year.

Registered unemployment rate

The registered urban unemployment rate was 4.3%.

Social security

In 2004, insurance plans for endowments, unemployment and medical treatment covered a population of 2.553 million, 1.732 million and 3.023 million respectively.

Residents' income

The disposable income of urban residents was 8,871 yuan per capita, up by 9.4% from 2003. Rural residents' per capita net income was 1,864 yuan, a growth of 6%.

Residents' consumption

Urban residents' per capita expenditure was 6,837 yuan, up by 7.0% from the previous year while that of rural residents was 1,570 yuan, up by 11.7%.

Geography and Natural Conditions

Elevation extremes

The highest point in the north is the Kagebo Peak in Deqin County on the Deqin Plateau, which is about 6,740 meters high; and the lowest is in the Honghe River Valley in Hekou County, with an elevation of 76.4 meters.

Natural resources

Yunnan abounds in natural resources. It is known as the kingdom of plants, animals and home of non-ferrous metals and medicinal herbs.

The province not only has more plant species of tropical, subtropical, temperate, and frozen zones than any other province in the country, but also has many ancient, derivative plants, as well as species introduced from foreign countries. Among the 30,000 species of plants in China, 18,000 can be found in Yunnan.

More than 150 kinds of minerals have been discovered in the province. The potential value of the proven deposits in Yunnan is 3 trillion yuan, 40% of which come from fuel minerals, 7.3% from metallic minerals, and 52.7% from nonmetallic minerals.

Yunnan has proved deposits of 86 kinds of minerals in 2,700 places. Some 13% of the proved deposits of minerals are the largest of their kind in China, and two-thirds of the deposits are among the largest of their kind in the Yangtze River valley and in south China. Yunnan ranks first in the country in deposits of zinc, lead, tin, cadmium, indium, thallium, and crocidolite.

Yunnan has sufficient rainfall and many rivers and lakes. The annual water flow originating in the province is 200 billion cubic meters, three times that of the Yellow River. The rivers flowing into the province from outside add 160 billion cubic meters, which means there are more than 10,000 cubic meters of water for each person in the province. This is four times the average in the country. The rich water resources offer abundant hydro-energy.

Tourism resources

Yunnan is attractive with its rich tourism resources, including beautiful landscape, colorful ethnic customs, and a pleasant climate.