General Economy

Gross domestic product (GDP)

GDP for 2004 was 1549.07 billion yuan, up 15.3% from the previous year.

GDP ratio (primary, secondary and tertiary industries)

The primary industry yielded a value added of 177.83 billion yuan, up 6.9% from the previous year; the secondary industry, 872.45 billion yuan, a growth of 19.2%; the tertiary industry, 498.79 billion yuan, a growth of 12.3%.

Revenue and expenditure

Provincial revenue was 267.56 billion yuan, an increase of 26.1% over the previous year. Provincial expenditure was 118.86 billion yuan, a growth of 17.6%.

Consumer price index (CPI)

CPI was up 3.6% from the previous year.

Investment in fixed assets

Fixed asset investment was valued at 758.93 billion yuan, up 37.7% from the previous year.

Major Industries

Agriculture

The total agricultural output value was 190.25 billion yuan, up 6.5% from the previous year.

Industry

The industrial added value totaled 649.83 billion yuan, an increase of 26.5%.

High-tech

The investment in high-tech industries totaled 46.37 billion yuan in 2004, up 51.4% from the year before. The total added value from these industries for the year stood at 125.11 billion yuan, up 29.3%. The output value of high-tech industries accounted for 21.9% of the province's total industrial output value.

Construction

Its added value was 190.21 billion yuan, up 28.4%.

Transportation

The annual volume of goods handled by various modes of transportation was 1.32 billion tons, up 10.2%, while annual passenger flow reached 890 million, up 18.4%.

Postal services

The annual turnover of postal operations totaled 3.94 billion yuan, 9.6% up from the previous year.

Telecommunications

The annual turnover of telecom services was 48.46 billion yuan, up 45.0%.

Retail

The annual turnover from retail sales reached 448.34 billion yuan, an increase of 13.9% from the previous year.

Tourism

Revenue from tourism stood at 81.47 billion yuan, up 42.1%.

Continued Effects of Market Reform

Imports & exports

The annual value of imports and exports totaled US$60.78 billion, an increase of 36.1% from the previous year.

Economic and technological cooperation

Overseas project and labor contracts signed during the year were valued at US$1.47 billion, up 18.0%. Business turnover for the year totaled US$1.52 billion, an increase of 52.8% from the previous year. A total of 63,000 laborers were working outstation at the year-end.

Foreign investment

The foreign direct investment realized in monetary terms was US$9.82 billion, up 32.4%.

Urban Construction and Management

Road transport

Investment in urban road construction totaled 40.75 billion yuan, up 27.4% from the 2003 figure. By the end of 2004, 3,033 km of express highway had been open to traffic, and 112 km of the Dajiawa-Laizhou-Longkou railway line had been completed and open to traffic.

Public services

The daily capacity of tap water supply reached 400,000 tons, the daily capacity of sewage treatment reached 440,000 tons, and the daily capacity of garbage treatment reached 2,000 tons at the end of 2004. A population of 600,000 now has access to liquefied gas.

Social Undertakings

Science and technology

At the end of 2004, 17,000 technological trading agencies in the province employed 210,000 people. A total of 26,000 technological contracts were signed during the year, 7.3% up from 2003. The contractual value amounted to 7.51 billion yuan, up 42.8%.

Education

The number of students enrolled in postgraduate schools and institutions of higher learning during the year stood at 11,000 and 327,000 respectively. In addition, the province has 139 schools for the handicapped and 798 vocational schools.

Culture

Shandong had a total of 120 professional performing organizations, 157 cultural and arts centers, 140 public libraries, and 158 archives.

Public health

There were a total of 17,000 medical and healthcare institutions equipped with 222,000 beds and staffed with some 321,000 medical professionals and technicians at the year-end.

Sports

The year saw the investment of more than 90 million yuan in the national physical fitness campaign.

Welfare and aid

1,896 welfare units across the province were equipped with 103,000 beds and put up 79,000 vagrant and homeless people during the year. There were also 2,012 welfare enterprises which employed 46,000 handicapped people. About 1.116 million people received minimum living allowances from the government.

Poverty relief

More than 100,000 students from poor families got financial assistance from the government.

Population, Employment, Social Security and Living Standards

Population

The year 2004 saw a birth rate of 12.5‰, and a mortality rate of 6.49‰. The natural growth rate of the population stood at 6.01‰. At the end of the year, the total population stood at 91.8 million.

Employment

The employed population stood at 57.28 million at the end of 2004. About 1.03 million new jobs were created, and 440,000 laid-off workers got re-employed during the year.

Registered unemployment rate

The registered urban unemployment rate was 3.4%, down 0.3 percentage points from the year before.

Social security

In 2004, insurance plans for endowments, unemployment, medical treatment and industrial injuries covered a population of 9.86 million, 7.48 million, 7.6 million and 4.7 million respectively. Endowments insurance was also available to 35,000 peasants during the year.

Residents' income

The disposable income of urban residents was 9,438 yuan per capita, up 12.4% from 2003, while rural residents' per capita net income was 3,507 yuan, a growth of 11.3% from the previous year.

Residents' consumption

Urban residents' per capita expenditure was 6,674 yuan, up 10.0% from the previous year, while rural residents' per capita expenditure was 2,389 yuan, up 12.0%.

Geography and Natural Conditions

Elevation extremes

The central part of the province is a mountainous highland, with the summit of Mount Taishan, 1,545 meters above sea level, being the highest point. Most hills distributed in its eastern part are at the altitude of 500 meters and lower. Plains lying in its west and north are mostly below 50 meters in elevation. The lowest area of the province is the Yellow River Delta, which is generally 2-10 meters above sea level.

Shandong's topography is complicated and interwoven with nine types of landform, including plains, basins, hills, terraces, deltas and mountains. Mountainous area and plains account for 15.5% and 55% of the province's territory, while hilly areas are of 13.2%, and rivers and lakes, 1.1%.

Climate

The province has a warm temperate monsoon climate with most rainfall concentrated in the hot summer. It has short spring and autumn but long winter and summer. The mean temperatures in a year are 11-14 °C. The annual average rainfall is between 550-950 mm. Natural calamities occur often.

Natural resources

Mainly relying on rainfall, the province's water resource is in scarcity, with only 520 cubic meters of water available for each of its residents, accounting for 18.8% of the national average of 2,770 cubic meters per head. For the time being, the water-supply ability of the province is 19.224 billion cubic meters, including 7.844 billion cubic meters of surface water, 5.88 billion cubic meters of underground water and 5.5 billion cubic meters diverted from the Yellow River.

A total of 128 varieties of minerals, 78% of that found in China, have been discovered in the province, of which 33 have their surveyed deposits listed among the top tens of the nation: gold, natural sulphur and gypsum rank the first; petroleum, diamond, magnesite, cobalt, hafnium, and granite are the second; and kali salt, graphite, talc, bentonite, and limestone are the third. In addition, the reserves of many other minerals, such as natural gas, iron, barite, diatomite, zircon, bauxite, and refractory clay are also very affluent.

There are more than 3,100 varieties of plant, including 645 of wide cash, growing in the province. Among the 450 species of wild land vertebrate animals (accounting for 21 percent of the nation's total), 55 are beasts, 362 are birds, eight are amphibians and 25 are reptiles. In addition, there are many species of land invertebrates, insects in particular, making the province rank No. 1 in the country in varieties of creatures in this category.

One of China's major agricultural production bases, Shandong is known as "a warehouse of grains, cotton, and oil, and the land of fruits and aquatic products." It's also an important producer of wheat, cotton, peanut, tobacco, hemp, silkworms, traditional Chinese medicinal herbs and materials. The apples produced in Yantai, pears from Laiyang, peaches of Feicheng, and Leling's golden-threaded jujubes are all famous specialties.

Shandong is rich in marine resources too. Its offshore area makes up 37% of the total surface area of the Bohai and Yellow seas, with a shoal area accounting for 15% of the nation's total. There are about 260 species of fish and prawn in its seas, including more than 40 major cash species of fish and 100 species of shellfish. Shandong leads the country in the production of prawns, shellfishes, abalones, sea slugs and urchins. Meanwhile, with many large and medium-sized salt works, the province is also one of China's four major salt producers. In its 266,000 ha of freshwaters, there are more than 40 species of freshwater plants and more than 70 species of fish.

The province is one of China's important energy bases, with Shengli Oilfield being the second largest of its kind in the country, and Zhongyuan, another oilfield, having a major part on its territory. The crude oil produced in Shandong makes up one-third of the nation's total. The province has 50,000 sq km of coalfields and its Yanteng Coalmine is one of the nation's 10 major coal production bases. The province has a rich electricity resource. The Shandong power network is the only one of the country's six major power networks that is operated separately on a provincial basis.

Tourism resources

With beautiful natural landscapes and numerous historical and cultural relics, Shandong has rich tourist resources. It offers a string of tourist attractions, such as Mount Taishan and the Temple, Mansion and Cemetery of Confucius, two World Heritage sites; Lingzi, capital of the ancient Qi State; Penglai, the well known "fairyland on earth"; Mount Laoshan, a sacred land of Taoism; Weifang, the "world capital of kites"; Qingdao, a charming coastal city famous for its annual International Beer Fair; Yantai, known worldwide as a wine producer; Rongcheng, a place considered as "the edge of the world" by ancient Chinese; Jinan, the provincial capital honored as "the city of springs"; and the site for watching the wonderful scene of the torrential Yellow River running into the sea.