ECONOMY/SOCIETY

Since 2012, China’s economic and social development has made new historic achievements. People’s income and living standards have reached a new height. China’s national strength and international influence have also significantly increased.

China Becomes the First Driving Force of World Economic Growth

A recent report released by the National Bureau of Statistics shows, China’s average contribution rate to the world economic growth from 2013 to 2021 had reached 38.6 percent, exceeding the total contribution rate of G7 countries. China has thus become the first driving force of global economic growth.

Over the past decade, China’s economy has maintained its rapid development momentum. During the period of 2013 to 2021, its average annual growth rate reached 6.6 percent, much higher than the world average rate of 2.6 percent. Despite the severe impacts brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, China’s economy still grew by 2.2 percent, making it the only major economy to maintain positive growth.

Since 2012, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) has ranked second in the world, and its proportion in the total world economy has increased year by year. In 2021, China’s GDP rose to US $17.7 trillion, accounting for 18.5 percent of the global total, 7.2 percentage points higher than its share in 2012.

Container Throughput in Chinese Ports Rises in First Eight Months

Container throughput in Chinese ports maintained a stable growth during the first eight months of the year. During the period of January-August, 194.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units of containers were handled at ports in China, up 4.1 percent year on year.

The growth figure maintained expansion during the first seven months of the year when the volume of containers handled at China’s ports increased by 4.2 percent year on year.

China Sees Surge in Newly Registered NEVs

The number of newly registered new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China nearly doubled year on year during the first nine months of this year.

From January to September 2022, 3.71 million NEVs were registered, up 98.48 percent compared with the same period last year, with NEVs accounting for 21.34 percent of all new automobile registrations in China.

By the end of September, China had a total of 11.49 million NEVs operating on the road, representing 3.65 percent of the total number of automobiles.

During the first three quarters of this year, a total of 23.92 million new driving licenses were issued.

By September of this year, 82 Chinese cities had hit the threshold of one million automobiles on the road. In particular, automobiles in Beijing surpassed six million.

RMB 10 trillion

Yuan-denominated financial bonds floated by the Export-lmport Bank of China (China EximBank) have exceeded RMB 10 trillion (about US $1.4 trillion). The lender has recently issued three batches of financial bonds totaling RMB 20 billion in the interbank bond market.

Privacy Better Protected in Courier Sector

The State Post Bureau and the Ministry of Public Security recently held a press conference on the progress made in a campaign launched by them in March together with the Cyberspace Administration of China to protect privacy of customers in the courier services sector. More companies have switched to new postal labels that conceal part of the recipients’ personal information, the number of such labels used every day is now estimated at 100 million.

Since March, the public security authorities have opened 189 cases on privacy violation in the postal sector, including illegally obtaining and selling customer information, and arrested 654 suspects. The postal authorities investigated 377 instances of malpractice by postal service providers, and organized 9,000 educational activities on information security.

The State Post Bureau will formulate or revise relevant regulations, intensify supervision and punishment of privacy violations, improve risk control, and encourage courier companies to adopt new technologies and measures to improve data protection.

Last year, China’s R&D investment scored an annual increase of14.6 percentto reachRMB 2.8 trillion— the sixth year in a row with doubledigit growth. Between 2016 and 2021, China’s input in R&D underwent an annual markup of12.3 percent, well above the7.8 percentin the U.S., 7.6 percentin the Republic of Korea,3.5 percentin Germany, and one percent in Japan from 2016 to 2020. In terms of R&D intensity, China ranks 13th among the world’s major economies.

Historic Changes in Water Supply and Use

According to the Ministry of Water Resources, China ensured the supply of safe drinking water to 280 million rural residents over the past decade, including 17.1 million registered poor people, and expanded the coverage of tap water in rural areas to 84 percent. Effective irrigation has been realized on 69 million hectares of farmland, bolstering China’s food security. During the past 10 years, China has spent RMB 150 billion from the central budget on irrigation facilities and invested RMB 466.7 billion on water supply projects in rural areas, which have benefited 340 million rural residents. The first phase of the project of the central and eastern routes of the Southto-North Water Diversion Project was completed, and has so far supplied 56.5 billion cubic meters of water to 150 million people. The capacity of China’s water conservancy projects has risen from 700 billion cubic meters in 2012 to 890 billion cubic meters in 2021. A safe, efficient, green, smart, and well-regulated national water network is taking shape.

Meanwhile water use has become more efficient. Last year, China’s water consumption per RMB 10,000 GDP and per RMB 10,000 industrial added value had been reduced by 45 percent and 55 percent respectively from 2012 levels, and the effective utilization coefficient of irrigation water rose from 0.516 to 0.568.

Higher Mechanization in Agriculture

Over the past decade, the mechanization rate of crop cultivation and harvesting in China increased from 57 percent to 72 percent — with the rates for wheat, corn, and rice exceeding 97 percent, 90 percent, and 85 percent respectively. “The rapid development in agricultural mechanization boosts crop outputs and farmers’ income increases. Agricultural production in China now primarily relies on machinery instead of human or animal labor,” said Wang Jiayun, an official of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

China produces more than 4,000 types of machinery spanning almost the entire spectrum of agricultural technology. Its annual production of 200 million units can meet 90 percent of the domestic demands. In the No.1 central document (issued by China’s central authorities each year and is an important indicator of that year’s policy priorities about agriculture, farmers, and rural areas) of this year, the central authorities announced intensifying efforts to crack technology bottlenecks, accelerate research and development of powerful machines — particularly of those used in hilly terrain and gardening, and highend smart machines among others, and provide long-term support.