General Economy

Gross domestic product (GDP)

GDP for 2005 was 59.94 billion yuan, up 10.3% from the previous year. The per capita GDP stood at US$1,242.

GDP ratio (primary, secondary and tertiary industries)

The primary industry yielded a value added of 6.978 billion yuan, 3.3% more than that of the previous year; the secondary industry, 27.782 billion yuan, a growth of 14.3%; the tertiary industry, 25.18 billion yuan, a growth of 8.3%.

Revenue and expenditure

Regional revenue was 8.701 billion yuan, an increase of 29.9% over the previous year. Regional expenditure was 15.871 billion yuan, a growth of 29.2%.

Consumer price index (CPI)

CPI was up 1.5% from the previous year.

Investment in fixed assets

Fixed asset investment was valued at 44.473 billion yuan, up 16.8% from the previous year.

Major Industries

Agriculture

In 2005, the agricultural output value was 13.448 billion yuan, an increase of 6.2% from the previous year.

Industry

The industrial added value totaled 22.829 billion yuan, an increase of 16.8%.

Construction

Its added value was 4.953 billion yuan.

Transportation

Freight carried by highway, railway and airway respectively reached 6.777 billion ton-kilometers, up 4.9%; 18.443 billion ton-kilometers, up 4.7%; and 6.5187 million ton-kilometers, up 15.9%.

The number of passengers carried by highway, railway and airway respectively reached 4.027 billion person-kilometers, up 5.5%; 2.195 billion person-kilometers, up 14.3%; and 474 million person-kilometers, up 24.4%.

Postal services

The annual turnover of postal operations totaled 256 million yuan, 10.2% up from the previous year.

Telecommunications

The annual turnover of telecom services was 4.604 billion yuan.

At the end of 2005, the number of fixed line subscribers reached 1.389 million, up by 16.2% from 2005; and the number of mobile phone subscribers reached 1.811 million, up by 14.2%. The Internet users numbered 591,000.

Retail

The annual turnover from retail sales reached 17.434 billion yuan, an increase of 13.1% from the previous year.

Tourism

Revenue from tourism totaled 1.774 billion yuan, up by 17.3%.

Continued Effects of Market Reform

Imports & exports

The annual value of imports and exports totaled US$967 million, an increase of 6.4% from the previous year. Of this figure, US$687 million were from exports, up 6.3%; and US$280 million were from imports, up 6.7%.

Foreign investment

Foreign direct investment realized in monetary terms was US$141 million, up 12.5% from the year before.

Social Undertakings

Science and technology

The number of technological contracts signed during the year reached 233, worth some 140 million yuan, 10.2% up from the year before.

Education

There were 13 institutions of higher learning at the year-end. The number of students enrolled in postgraduate schools and institutions of higher learning during the year stood at 662 and 14,775 respectively.

Culture

The region had a total of 14 professional performing organizations, 20 cultural centers, 5 museums and 21 public libraries. About 91.42% and 92.82% of the regional population respectively had access to various radio and TV programs.

Public health

There were a total of 1,463 medical and healthcare institutions equipped with 17,802 beds and staffed with 22,817 medical professionals and technicians at the year-end.

Sports

A total of 22.46 million yuan was invested in the construction of 194 public sports and body building facilities.

Population, Employment, Social Security and Living Standards

Population

The year 2005 saw births of 94,300, or a birth rate of 15.93‰, and deaths of 29,300, or a mortality rate of 4.95‰. The natural growth rate of the population stood at 10.98‰. At the end of the year, the total population stood at 5.962 million.

Employment

The employed population stood at 2.996 million at the end of 2005, an increase of 16,000 from the previous year-end.

Registered unemployment rate

The registered urban unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Residents' income

The disposable income of urban residents was 8,094 yuan per capita, up 12.1% from 2004. Rural residents' per capita net income was 2,509 yuan, a growth of 6.3% from the previous year.

Residents' consumption

Urban residents' per capita expenditure was 6,404 yuan, up 10% from the previous year while that of rural residents was 2,094 yuan, up 8.7%.

Geography and Natural Conditions

Elevation extremes

The topography of Ningxia slants toward the north with an elevation from 1,100 to 2,000 meters. The highest point is 3,556 meters above sea level.

Natural resources

Ningxia boasts 0.71 million hectares of wasteland suitable for farming, one of China's eight provinces and autonomous regions each with more than 0.63 million hectares of wasteland suitable for agriculture. There are 3 million hectares of exploitable meadows, making Ningxia one of the ten major pastures in China. The Weining Plain that features 0.37 million hectares of land irrigated with water diverted from the Yellow River is one of the four principal areas with gravity irrigation in northwest China. For years, the annual runoff of the Yellow River through Ningxia has remained at 32.5 billion cubic meters, and the water resources allocated to Ningxia by the state for irrigation are 4 billion cubic meters.

The rich land resources, convenient conditions to divert water from the Yellow River for irrigation, and abundant sunshine have laid a solid foundation for Ningxia to bring into play its advantages in the development of agriculture. Crops, melons, and other fruit are doing well in the irrigated area. Watermelon, apple, and grape from the irrigated area have a 15-20% higher sugar content than those produced in central China. The per-hectare yield of single-cropping paddy reaches 10,500 kilograms, placing Ningxia in front among the provinces and autonomous regions in western China and turning it into one of the nation's 12 grain production bases. Effort is being taken to build Ningxia into a national agricultural demonstration area with high yield, high efficiency, and fine quality.

Livestock breading makes up 29% of the local agriculture. Of the 82,000-hectare water surfaces, 10,000 hectares can be used for aquaculture. Ningxia produces various species of carp, river shrimp, and river crabs. There is a great potential for the development of aquaculture. In recent years, Ningxia has seen a rapid development of the aquatic production. It leads other provinces and autonomous regions in the northwest in the per-capita output of aquatic products.

Ningxia is rich in mineral resources, with verified deposits of 50 kinds of minerals including coal, gypsum, oil, natural gas, pottery clay, quartz sandstone, and barite. The potential value of these natural resources per capita is 163.5% of the nation's average, putting Ningxia fifth in the country. There are abundant reserves of various kinds of coal. Ningxia has formed a considerable scale of coal production. It leads the country in the deposits of gypsum, with verified deposits of more than 4.5 billion tons. Top-grade gypsum makes up half of the total deposits. The Huojiakouzi deposit in Tongxin County features a reserve of 20 tons of gypsum in 20 layers with a total thickness of 100 meters. It is a rarely-seen large gypsum in China. The reserve of oil and natural gas is ideal for a large-scale development of oil, natural gas, and chemical industries. There is a considerable deposit of quartz sandstone, of which 17 million tons have been ascertained. In addition, there are phosphorus, firestone, copper, iron, other minerals as well as Helan stone (a special clay stone).