Fast Facts
Formal name : People's Republic of China (PRC)
Capital city : Beijing
President : Hu Jintao
Top legislative power : The National People's Congress
Largest city : Shanghai
Currency : (RMB) Yuan
Population : 1.3 billion by January 6, 2005
Climate: extremely diverse; tropical in the south to sub arctic in the north.
Ethnic groups: China has 56 ethnic groups, of which the Hans have the largest population, accounting for 91.59 percent of the total, according to the country's fifth census conducted in 2000
Languages: Of the 56 ethnic groups in China, the Hui and Manchu use the same languages as Han people,
Public holidays: China’s 11 public holidays include: New Year's Day (January 1)
Religious belief: China is a country with a diversity of religions, with over 100 million followers of the various faiths. The main religions are Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, China’s indigenous Taoism, along with Shamanism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
Political Party: Communist Party of China Founded in July 1921, the Communist Party of China (CPC) today has more than 68 million members. The current General Secretary is Hu Jintao.
Land and Natural Resources
Land Resources China has 9.6 million square kilometers land area, accounting for 22.1% of the land area of the Asian continent, and accounting for 6.4% of the world's land area; it is one of the countries which have a vast area of land.
Energy resources China has full range of conventional energy resources; it is one of the major energy resources countries in the world. Rich in coal resources and the coal tenure amounted to 901.453 billion tons by the end of 1990, which tops the list of world; Particular rich in waterpower resources, the academic reserves are 6.76 million kilowatts, which ranks first in the world.
Mineral resources China is one of the few countries in the world which have many mineral species. By the end of 1990, China’s proved mineral species which have some reserves had reached 148. Nonferrous metals have some advantages, the reserves of tungsten, antimony, tin, mercury, molybdenum, zinc, copper, bismuth, vanadium, titanium, rare earth, Lithium and others are among the largest in the world.
Water resources A preliminary estimate of china’s water resources is 27115 billion cubic meters. The mean annual runoffs of China’s river equal to 5.8% of the world’s total runoffs.
Forest Resource China now has 124 million hectares of forest area, ranks eight in the world, but the forest coverage rate is only 12.98%; The reserves of forest is 9.141 billion cubic meters, ranks five in the world.
Infrastructure
Highway volume continued to grow. By the end of 2005, the length of highway reached 1.9305 million km, and further improving. In the length of total national highway, national road was 132,674 km, provincial road was 233,783 km, county road was 494,276 km, rural road was 981,430 km, and special road was 88,380 km.
Railway By the end of 2003, China's total railway length was 73,000 km, in which the length of double-track line more than 20,000 km, the length of the electrification was 18,000 km. China's first cross-sea railway in Guangdong-Hainan Railway opened on January 7, 2003. The world's highest-altitude Qinghai-Tibet railway, with a total distance of 1,142 km, was completed in 2006.
Port By the end of 2005, the nation's coastal ports have 4,298 berths for production, in which over 10,000-ton’s berths have 847; River ports have 30,944 berths for production, in which over 10,000-ton’s berths have 187.
Aviation China's civil aviation airports which have scheduled flights reached more than 140, the routes of scheduled flights reached more than 1,000. In which, international routes more than 160, connect more than 60 cities in more than 30 countries.
Telephone The total number of telephone users exceeded 800 million households in 2006; the total number of mobile phone users exceeded 400 million households.
Internet Development of China's Internet, the report shows, up to December 31 2006, Internet users in mainland China has reached 137 million, in which broadband users already reached 104 million.
Administrative
According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, the administrative division of China is as follows:
1. The country is divided into provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government
2. Provinces and autonomous regions are divided into autonomous prefectures, counties, autonomous counties and cities; and
3. Counties and autonomous counties are divided into townships, ethnic townships, and towns.
The Constitution and Legal System
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, four Constitutions have been formulated, in 1954, 1975, 1978 and 1982 successively.
China's legal system consists of seven categories;
1. Constitutional and related law
2. civil and commercial law
3. administrative law
4. economic law, social law
5. criminal law
6. litigation and
7. Non-litigation procedural law.
Since 1979, the building of China's legal system has developed rapidly and in an all-round way. A relatively complete legal system is now basically in place.
Economy
The economy of the People's Republic of China is the fourth largest in the world when measured by nominal GDP. Its economic output for 2006 was $2.68 trillion USD. Its per capita GDP in 2006 was approximately US $2,000 (US $7,600 with PPP), still low by world standards (110th of 183 nations in 2005), but rising rapidly.
As of 2005, 70% of China's GDP is in the private sector. The smaller public sector is dominated by about 200 large state enterprises concentrated mostly in utilities, heavy industries, and energy resources.
Since 1978 the People's Republic of China (PRC) government has been reforming its economy from a Soviet-style centrally planned economy to a more market-oriented economy while remaining within the political framework provided by the Communist Party of China. This system has been called "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and is one type of mixed economy.
These reforms started since 1978 has helped lift millions of people out of poverty, bringing the poverty rate down from 53% of population in 1981 to 8% by 2001. In December 2005, China's National Bureau of Statistics revised its 2004 nominal GDP upwards by 16.8% or Rmb 2,336.3 billion (US$281.9 billion), making China the 6th largest economy in the world. (Overtaking Italy, with a GDP of almost $2 trillion USD.)
At the start of 2006, the PRC officially announced itself as the 4th largest economy, measured by USD-exchange rate overtaking France and the United Kingdom.
At the beginning of 2007 China stands as the second largest economy in the world measured by domestic PPP (purchasing power) measure, at about $10 trillion USD. By the end of 2008, China is predicted (measured by exchange rate) to overtake Germany as the third largest economy, and to overtake Japan by 2020. It would then overtake the US by 2040 to become the world's largest economy.
China's GDP growth in 2008 is likely to slow from the 11.9 pct posted in 2007, as growth in investment and exports decelerates, according to Xu Xianchun, deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics, China.
Slowing economies in the US, EU and Japan are expected to affect Chinese exports and could lead to reduced investment by export-intensive companies, he said.
GDP GROWTH CHART
| 
|
| | | | | | | |
| | | Mar | Jun | Sep | Dec | |
| | 2008 | 10.6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| | 2007 | 11.7 | 11.9 | 11.5 | 11.2 | |
| | 2006 | 10.4 | 11.5 | 10.6 | 10.4 | |
| | 2005 | 9.9 | 10.1 | 9.8 | 9.9 | |
| | | | | | | |
