General Economy

Gross domestic product (GDP)

GDP for 2004 was 632.05 billion yuan, up 11.5% from the previous year.

GDP ratio (primary, secondary and tertiary industries)

The primary industry yielded a value added of 102.01 billion yuan, 6.5% more than that of the previous year; the secondary industry, 299.47 billion yuan, a growth of 14.0%; the tertiary industry, 230.57 billion yuan, a growth of 10.0%. The GDP ratio of the three sectors is 16.1: 47.4: 36.5.

Revenue and expenditure

Provincial revenue was 30.37 billion yuan, an increase of 17.0% over the previous year. Provincial expenditure was 64.17 billion yuan, an increase of 19.2%.

Consumer price index (CPI)

CPI was 104.9, up 4.9% from the previous year.

Investment in fixed assets

Fixed asset investment was valued at 235.64 billion yuan, up by 25.1% from the previous year.

Major Industries

Agriculture

In 2004, the province's total agricultural value added was 6.5% up from the previous year. The output of grains totaled 21 million tons, an increase of 1.79 million tons, or 9.3%, from 2003.

Industry

The industrial added value of all state-owned enterprises and private businesses whose annual sales income each tops 5 million yuan totaled 166.47 billion yuan, an increase of 22.8%.

Construction

Its added value was 23.32 billion yuan, up by 20.5%.

Transportation

Freight carried by various means of transport during the year amounted to a total of 140.36 billion ton-kilometers, 13.0% up from the previous year. Passengers carried by various means of transport numbered 70.18 billion person-kilometers during the year, up 14.9%.

Postal and telecom services

The annual turnover of postal operations and telecommunications totaled 29.46 billion yuan, 61.2% up from the previous year.

Retail

The annual turnover from retail sales reached 266.75 billion yuan, an increase of 13.1% from the previous year.

Tourism

Foreign exchange earnings from tourism totaled US$192 million, up by 41.2%. Revenue from domestic tourism totaled 39.42 billion yuan, up by 18.9%.

Continued Effects of Market Reform

Imports & exports

The annual value of imports and exports totaled US$6.77 billion, an increase of 32.5% from the previous year.

Economic and technological cooperation

Overseas project and labor contracts signed during the year were valued at US$310 million, up 4.2% from the previous year. Business turnover for the year totaled US$274 million, an increase of 34.7%.

Foreign investment

In 2004, foreign direct investment and investment from other sources totaled US$2.36 billion, up by 20.0% from the year before.

Urban Construction and Management

Road transport

A total of 2.3 billion yuan was invested in road transport infrastructure. Construction of 5,164 km highways linking counties and townships and 6,000 km roads linking villages were launched during the year.

Social Undertakings

Science and technology

R & D expenditure of the province totaled 6.03 billion, up by 10% from 2003.

Education

The number of students enrolled in institutes of higher learning during the year stood at 295,800. A total of 143,200 students graduated.

Culture

By the end of 2004, the province had a total of 99 arts performance organizations, 129 cultural and arts centers, 104 public libraries, 98 museums and 93 cinemas.

Public health

At the end of the year, there were 9,983 public health institutions staffed with a work force of 208,300 people and equipped with 135,900 beds; and 287 epidemic prevention and treatment centers staffed with 12,000 people.

Sports

The athletes from the province won 6 golds, 3 silvers and 5 bronzes in international games.

Welfare and aid

Welfare units across the province are equipped with 144,000 beds to put up 131,000 homeless and vagrant people. There were 7,081 urban community centers at the end of the year. The welfare lottery reaped sales of 1.24 billion yuan in 2004. A total of 435,000 rural residents have been covered by the regular relief funds.

Population, Employment, Social Security and Living Standards

Population

The year 2004 saw births of 506,000 and deaths of 362,000 in the province. The natural growth rate of the population stood at 2.4‰. At the end of the year, the total population stood at 60.16 million.

Employment

A total of 605,000 people found jobs during the year, an increase of 175,000 compared with the previous year. By the end of the year, 35.07 million of the province's population were employed.

Registered unemployment rate

The registered urban unemployment rate was 4.2%, down by 0.1 percentage points from the previous year.

Social security

In 2004, insurance plans for endowments, medical treatment, and unemployment covered a population of 7.78 million, 4.66 million, and 3.91 million respectively. These figures are up by 460,000, 500,000, and 12,000 respectively from the previous year.

Residents' income

The disposable income of urban residents was 8,023 yuan per capita, up by 9.6% from 2003. Rural residents' per capita net income was 2,897 yuan, up 13%.

Geography and Natural Conditions

Elevation extremes

Hubei is located in the transitional region from the second to the third terrace in the terrain of China, thus having a variety of landforms. It is surrounded by Wuling, Wushan, Daba, Wudang, Tongbai, Dabie and Mufu mountains on the west, north and east. Lying in the central and southern parts is the Jianghan Plain which extends to Hunan Province to link with the Dongting Lake Plain. Except for the hills on the fringes of the plain, the altitude on the plain is 35 meters or lower above sea level. The proportion of various landforms to the total area of the province is as follows: Mountains, 55.5%; hills and hillocks, 24.5%; and plain and lake areas, 20%. The elevation of different parts varies greatly. Shennong Summit, the highest peak of Shennongjia in west Hubei, which is known as the "Roof of Central China," is 3,105 meters above sea level, while Tanjiayuan of Jianli County on the eastern plain has an elevation of zero.

Climate

Hubei has a subtropical monsoon climate. It enjoys abundant sunlight, with the annual amount of solar radiation totaling 85-114 kilocalories per square cm and annual duration of sunshine averaging 1,200-2,200 hours. Temperature is on the high side, with annual temperature averaging between 13-18℃. The highest temperature can reach 41℃, while the lowest temperature can drop to -14.9℃. The short frost period and abundant precipitation are favorable for agriculture. There are 230 to 300 days free of frost in a year and the annual rainfall has stood at 1,182.3 mm for many years. But rainfall is unevenly distributed. The amount of precipitation in the Wuling mountainous area is as high as 1,600-1,700 mm, while that in west Hubei is as low as 700-800 mm.

Natural resources

Up to date, Hubei has discovered 138 kinds of minerals, 89 of which having their reserves verified. The reserves of phosphorus ore, hongshiite, wollastonite, garnet and marlstone rank the fifth in China, and several others, including iron, phosphorus, copper, gypsum, rock salt, gold amalgam, manganese and vanadium, rank the seventh nationally. But Hubei lacks energy minerals, with limited verified reserves of coal, petroleum and natural gas. The province's recoverable reserves of coal stand at 548 million tons.

Hubei has 10th largest water-surface area in China. The province has 1,193 rivers of different sizes, their lengths totaling 37,000 km. Among these rivers, 42 run more than 100 km. The Yangtze River flows 1,061 km traversing Hubei from west to east. The Hanjiang River, the largest tributary of the Yangtze, runs 878 km in Hubei from northwest to southeast before emptying into the Yangtze River at Wuhan.

Hubei has long been famed as a "province of thousand lakes." There were more than 1,300 lakes in the province in 1985, including 300 major ones which were 3 square kilometers each or larger in size. The majority of the lakes are distributed in the Jianghan Plain. Hubei is rich in underground water resources. Of its estimated 265 billion cubic meters of underground water reserves, 35.57 billion cubic meters are ready for annual extraction, approximately amounting to 36% of the province's average annual surface runoff. There are 58 large reservoirs in the province with a total water storage of 43.75 billion cubic meters.

Hubei boasts a number of large and medium-sized hydropower stations – the Gezhouba, Danjiangkou, Geheyan, Hanjiang, Duhe, Huanglongtan, Bailianhe, Lushui and Fushui. In addition, some thermal power stations have been built in Wuhan, Jingmen, Huangshi and some other places in recent years.

Hubei has a land area of 185,897 square kilometers, constituting 1.94% of the national total. The area of cultivated land is approximately 3.35 million hectares, with per-capita area standing at 0.06 hectares.

There are 570 species of terrestrial vertebrates in Hubei. Dozens of them have been listed as rare animals under state protection. They include golden-haired monkey, serow, leopard (Panthera pardus), white bear, white musk, white deer, white snake, white-crowned king pheasant and red-bellied tragopan. There are also 175 kinds of fish, accounting for about one quarter of the country's total freshwater fish species. Rare species under key state protection include Chinese sturgeon, Chinese paddlefish, mullet and giant salamander.

Hubei boasts both large numbers of broad-leaved deciduous species, which are typical plants of north China, and many broad-leaved evergreen species, which are popular in southern China. There are more than 2,000 species of wild plants, including some 1,300 kinds of medicinal plants and over 30 species either rare in the world or peculiar to China. The well-preserved Shennongjia virgin forest is a natural park of subtropical fauna and flora.

Tourism resources

Hubei's tourism resources feature both beautiful landscapes and abundant places of historic and cultural interest. There are six national-level scenic spots, 13 national forest parks and three national nature reserves. Shennongjia has been listed in the UNESCO's program of Man and Biosphere and Wudang Mountain in the list of World Cultural and Natural Heritages. The Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, Yellow Crane Tower and Gezhouba have been listed among China's top 40 tourist scenic sports. Hubei encompasses five famous historical and cultural cites designated by the state, 20 cultural sites under state protection, 365 cultural sites under provincial protection, five sites of Chu city ruins, 73 Chu Cultural sites and over 140 sites relating to the Three Kingdoms (220-265).