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| 2002 economic review: China's economy is global beacon |
| CCTV.COM 2002-12-23 16:12:31 |
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While much of the world remains mired in an economic downturn, China's economy in 2002 has shown many encouraging changes and clear improvement in quality, efficiency and the speed of its growth. Trade and foreign investment have both hit new highs, continuing the rapid momentum. 2002 also marks the first year of China's WTO membership, which signals the transition and integration of China's economy into the world trade system, a re－defining of its antiquated standards, setting of a new framework for the future.
That is the first part of our annual review of China's economic development. Tomorrow, we will take a look at the impact of the 16th CPC National Congress on the economy and explore how the institutional reforms and readjustments carried out in the year 2002 helped unleash more productivity and inject new vitality into the country's economy.
Speaking of China's economic situation this year, businesspeople and economists almost unanimously say, "unexpectedly good." Instead of displaying the trend of "first grow fast and then slow down," as estimated at the beginning of the year.
China's economy has run increasingly higher with the growth rate registered at 7.6, 8.0 and 8.1 percent respectively for the first three quarters, with projections of between 8.1 and 8.3 percent for the fourth quarter.
Director of State Statistics Bureau Zhu Zhixin said, "Judging from the current economic momentum and situation, we can be sure that the economic aggregate this year is expected to exceed 10 trillion yuan （around 1.2 trillion US dollars）, and the economic growth is expected to be 8 percent."
This optimistic forecast is supported by the continuous rise of indexes in export, investment, consumption and other aspects of the economy. While the total volume of international investment has decreased, China's actual use of overseas funds has stayed at 40 billion US dollars each year. In the last 10 months China approved the establishment of nearly 28,000 overseas－funded enterprises, up 34.5 percent. The contractual investment was about 75 billion US dollars, almost 36 percent higher, and the actual arrived investment increased by nearly 20 percent. Once again, China's top foreign trade official has expressed his confidence.
"Last year, the United States absorbed more than 140 billion US dollars of foreign direct investment. According to all sources, the foreign capital that flows into the US this year will not exceed 50 billion US dollars, whereas the overseas capital China attracts will exceed this figure. Therefore, for the first time, China has become the number one FDI recipient country of the world," said Shi Guangsheng, minister of Foreign Trade & Economic Cooperation.
According to a report released this September by A.T.Kearney, one of the world's leading business strategy consulting firms, China tops the list of the overseas investor confidence index. The report is based on surveys of executives at the world's 1,000 biggest companies, which contribute about 70 percent of FDI flows worldwide.
"During the past, we felt there have been tremendous changes in the overall business environment. We've been able to enjoy more freedom and leeway. This has provided incentives for many multinationals, including Microsoft, to expand their investment in China," said Microsoft President Tang Jun.
In addition to overseas investment, the year 2002 also has witnessed a surge in China's exports. In January－November this year, China scored an export volume of almost 300 billion US dollars. The overall trade volume for the year is estimated to top 600 billion US dollars with a surplus hitting 30 billion US dollars. And the country may leap from sixth to fifth place in world trade ranks.
While the exports are rising, China's imports this year are also jumping to a record high. This is mainly attributed to China's WTO entry. This is the first year since China joined the World Trade Organization. As a responsible member of the global trade body, China has taken a series of steps to honor its commitments. Over the past 12 months, China slashed import duties on 5,300－odd goods and lowered the overall tariff level from 15.3 percent to 12 percent. Quotas of eight kinds of major products including wool, cotton and fertilizers were also cancelled.
Besides foreign trade, China's services industry has also been highly responsive to the changing circumstances. Outstanding among the service sectors is the banking business. It has forged ahead on the basis of China's WTO accession in terms of foreign participation.
Xie Peng, director of Research Bureau, People's Bank of China, said, "Following our commitments to the WTO, we have opened China's market step by step to overseas banks. We have clearly seen and felt the existence of these overseas banks in China's large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing and so forth. In those cities, overseas banks are already competing with domestic banks in either the yuan－based or foreign currency－based businesses."
In the first half of 2002, overseas banks launched 233 representative offices on the Chinese mainland, of which more than 40 were allowed to handle yuan－based transactions. HSBC is one of them.
HSBC President Liu Zhanzhi said, "Following China's entry into the WTO, the banking sector has been opened by a large margin. In 2002, HSBC has been making the most of this unprecedented opportunity and has been making progress in many different ways."
Acting upon the principle of combining "bringing in" and "going out," China is set to gradually open the service sector even wider. More importantly, China is to combine the use of foreign capital with domestic economic institutional readjustments and reforms.
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Editor: Xiao Wei CCTV.com
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