Since
reform and opening up, through large-scale investment and
construction, the basic industry that once was the ¡°bottleneck¡±
of national economy has been enhanced by a big margin both
in production capability and infrastructure level, the investment
environment and existence environment has been greatly improved,
the people¡¯s living qualities has been constantly increased,
which paved a firm foundation for national economy to develop
healthily and stably.
Water conservancy,
agriculture, forestry, husbandry and fishery: by the end
of 2002, altogether 85 thousand reservoirs have been constructed
with the overall storage capacity of 559.4 billion cubic
meters; 273.7 thousand km of embankment have been refitted
and freshly built; 5,691 irrigation sections as large as
over 10,000 mu have been established with 838 million mu
of effective irrigation areas in the whole country and 279
million mu water-saving irrigation areas; and 418 motor-pumped
wells have irrigated 246 million mu. The large-scale farming
land water conservancy construction has safeguarded agriculture
to maintain high and stable yielding and to ensure bumper
harvest for years running. By late 2002, the national grain
turnout reached 457.11 million tons, cotton 4.92 million
tons and oil 29 million tons.
Energy industry: The period of 1978-2001
witnessed altogether 466.72 million tons of newly increased
crude coal exploitation, 293.31 million tons of natural
raw oil exploitation, 27.8 billion cubic meters of natural
gas exploitation and 254.17 million kw of freshly increased
generating set capacity. By the end of 2002, the national
crude coal output arrived at 1.11 billion tons, raw oil
170 million tons and electricity generation volume 1.640
trillion kwh.
The Communications and Transport Industry:
the period of 1978-2001 saw accumulated 18,167 km of new
railways turn to operation, 576.61 million tons of handling
capacity of the coastal harbors, 16.937 km of newly built
highways and 161,056 km of long distance cable. Now backboned
by railway, the comprehensive transport network consists
of highway, waterway and civil aviation and pipeline has
been basically formed. The railway mileage ascended from
21.8 thousand km in 1949 to 71.5 thousand km in 2002, increased
2.28 times. The highway milestone ascended from 80.7 thousand
km in 1949 to 1.76 million km in 2002, increased 20.8 times,
and the highway grades elevated obviously and the path condition
improved greatly. After dredging up the inland watercourse,
the navigation conditions also greatly improved, the navigation
mileage increased from 73.6 thousand km in 1949 to 121.5
thousand km in 2002. Civil aviation, the fastest transportation
method developed in our country, has opened 1,143 international
and national flight courses, which consisted the blue-sky
transport network extending in all directions.
The Posts and Telecommunications Industry
has established a nationwide and world-reaching public telecom
network including optic fibers, digital microwave, program-controlled
exchange and mobile communication. A densely covered public
post network with complete services has been built. At present,
post offices have covered 77.6% countries and towns. 100%
countries and towns have access to telephones and have entered
automatic network of long distance call. The scale of telephone
network expanded rapidly. The total capacity of country¡¯s
telephone exchangers skyrocketed from 4.059 million in 1978
to 2833 million in 2002. The scale of network rapidly developed
to rank the second in the world. Mobile telecom and digital
communication have grown out of nothing and developed rapidly
and violently. In 2002, the user of mobile telecom amounted
to 207 million. The users of fixed and mobile phones have
topped 421 million. The popularity rate of telephones has
increased from 0.4 per hundred persons in 1978 to 33.7 per
hundred persons in 2002.