General Economy

Gross domestic product (GDP)

GDP for 2004 was 155.89 billion yuan, up 11.0% from the previous year.

Revenue and expenditure

Provincial revenue was 21.54 billion yuan, an increase of 21.57% over the previous year.

Consumer price index (CPI)

CPI was up 2.3% from the previous year.

Investment in fixed assets

Fixed asset investment was valued at 75.60 billion yuan, up by 15.41% from the previous year.

Major Industries

Agriculture

The output of grains totaled 8.06 million tons, an increase of 2.09% from 2003.

Industry

The industrial added value totaled 57.62 billion yuan, an increase of 14.1%.

Construction

Its added value was 18.196 billion yuan, up by 8.1%.

Transportation

Freight carried by various means of transport for the year totaled 74.63 billion ton-kilometers, up by 17.9% from the previous year. Passengers carried by various means of transport numbered 26.84 billion person-kilometers, an increase of 16.3%.

Postal services

The annual turnover of postal operations totaled 656 million yuan, 2.34% up from the previous year.

Telecommunications

The annual turnover of telecommunications services totaled 10.25 billion yuan, up by 47.11%.

Retail

The annual turnover from retail sales reached 53.58 billion yuan, an increase of 12.9% from the previous year.

Tourism

Revenue from domestic tourism totaled 5.16 billion yuan, up by 1.36 folds from the 2003 figure. Foreign exchange earnings from tourism totaled US$44 million, up by 1.07 folds.

Continued Effects of Market Reform

Imports & exports

The annual value of imports and exports totaled US$1.77 billion, an increase of 33.59% from the previous year.

Economic and technological cooperation

Overseas project and labor contracts signed during the year were valued at US$40 million, up 1.11% from the previous year. Business turnover for the year totaled US$40 million, down by 5.75% from the previous year.

Foreign investment

The foreign direct investment which was materialized during the year stood at US$35 million, up by 51.11%.

Urban Construction and Management

Road transport

By the end of 2004, a total of 40,751 km of highways and 686 km of expressways had opened to traffic. About 1,630 km of countryside highways were built or renovated.

Social Undertakings

Education

The number of students enrolled in institutes of higher learning, postgraduate schools during the year stood at 66,200 and 6,100 respectively, up by 10.15% and 69.44%.

Culture

By the end of 2004, the province had a total of 76 arts performance organizations, 84 cultural and arts centers, 92 public libraries, 67 museums, 8 radio stations and 15 television stations.

Public health

At the end of the year, there were 11,407 public health institutions staffed with a work force of 82,245 people and equipped with 58,029 beds; and 105 epidemic prevention and treatment centers.

Sports

The athletes from the province won 20 prizes.

Welfare and aid

Welfare units across the province are equipped with 10,093 beds and put up 5,827 homeless and vagrant people during the year. There were 2,531 urban community centers at the end of the year. The welfare lottery reaped sales of 228 million yuan in 2004. Public donations totaled 14 million yuan.

Poverty relief

The year saw a reduction of 100,000 people living in absolute poverty in rural areas. About 1.2 million rural residents began to have easy access to drinking water.

Population, Employment, Social Security and Living Standards

Population

The year 2004 saw births of 324,600 and deaths of 170,200 in the province. The natural growth rate of the population stood at 5.91‰. At the end of the year, the total population stood at 26.19 million.

Employment

A total of 10,400 laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises got re-employed during the year. By the end of the year, 15.2 million of the province's population were employed.

Registered unemployment rate

The registered urban unemployment rate was 3.4%, equaling that of the previous year.

Social security

In 2004, insurance plans for unemployment, endowments, and medical treatment covered a population of 1.61 million, 1.95 million, and 1.66 million respectively.

Residents' income

The disposable income of urban residents was 7,377 yuan per capita, up by 10.81% from 2003. Rural residents' per capita net income was 1,852 yuan, up 10.7%.

Residents' consumption

Urban residents' consumer prices rise by 1.3% from the previous year while rural residents' consumer prices are up by 4.3%.

Geography and Natural Conditions

Elevation extremes

1,000-3,000 meters.

Natural resources

Land
Gansu features a land area of 455,000 sq km, including 4.54 million ha of cultivated land at the end of 2004. During the year, some 4,500 ha of wasteland were reclaimed, and about 153,800 ha of farmland were converted for forestry and pasture.

Mineral
Nearly 3,000 deposits of 145 kinds of minerals have been found and the reserves of 94 kinds of minerals have been ascertained, including nickel, cobalt, platinum family elements, selenium, casting clay, finishing serpentine, and five other minerals whose reserves are the largest in the country. Gansu has special advantages in tapping 15 kinds of minerals such as nickel, zinc, cobalt, platinum, iridium, copper, stibium, barite, and baudisserite.

Energy
The water resources in Gansu are mainly distributed in nine river systems in the Yellow, Yangtze, and inland river drainage basins with an annual discharge of 61.4 billion cubic meters and a combined hydropower potential of 17.24 million kw. Gansu places ninth among China's provinces and autonomous regions in terms of hydropower potential. To date, 29 hydropower stations have been constructed in the province with an installed generating capacity of 30 million kw and an annual output of 23.565 billion kwh. The Liujiaxia, Yanguoxia, and Bapanxia hydropower stations on the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the Bikou Hydropower Station on the Bailong River have a total installed capacity of 2.125 million kw. The proved reserves of coal are 8.92 billion tons, and those of petroleum, between 600 and 700 million tons. There is also a considerable potential for the development of wind and solar energies.

Animals and plants
There are 659 species of wild animals, including the giant panda, snub-nosed monkey, antelope, snow leopard, deer, fawn, musk deer, bactrian (two-humped) camel, and 24 other first-class rare animals under state protection, and 441 species of birds in Gansu Province. There are over 4,000 species of wild plants including 951 species of medical value. Among the plants of medical value, 450 species, such as angelica root, rhubarb, hairy asiabell root, licorice root, fritillary bulb, mariajuana, the bark of eucommia, glossy ganoderma, and Chinese caterpillar fungus, have been developed. Gansu holds second place among China's provinces and autonomous regions in the variety of medicinal herbs.