General Economy

Gross domestic product (GDP)

GDP for 2004 was 46.03 billion yuan, up 11% from the previous year.

GDP ratio (primary, secondary and tertiary industries)

The primary industry yielded a value added of 6.51 billion yuan, 3.8% more than that of the previous year; the secondary industry, 23.94 billion yuan, a growth of 14.1%; the tertiary industry, 15.58 billion yuan, a growth of 9.8%. The ratio of the secondary and tertiary industries in GDP reached 85.9%.

Revenue and expenditure

Regional revenue was 6.7 billion yuan, an increase of 32.1% over the previous year. Regional expenditure was 12.29 billion yuan, a growth of 16.2%.

Consumer price index (CPI)

CPI was up 3.7% from the previous year.

Investment in fixed assets

Fixed asset investment was valued at 37.97 billion yuan, up 19.3% from the previous year.

Major Industries

Agriculture

In 2004, the agricultural added value was 6.72 billion yuan, an increase of 3.8% from the previous year.

Industry

The industrial added value totaled 18.63 billion yuan, an increase of 18.1%.

High-tech

The export value of high-tech products was US$180 million, up 15.4% from 2003 while the import value of high-tech products was 64.5% up.

Construction

Its added value was 5.31 billion yuan, up 1.9%.

Transportation

The annual volume of goods handled by highway, railway and air was 6.46 billion tons, up 2.4%; 18.64 billion tons, down 5.3%; and 3.473 million tons, up 96.7%, respectively. The annual passenger flow by highway, railway, and air reached 3.82 billion, up 13.9%; 2.32 billion, up 18.4%; and 380 million, up 80.2%, respectively.

Postal services

The annual turnover of postal operations totaled 230 million yuan, 9.4% up from the previous year.

Telecommunications

The annual turnover of telecom services was 3.69 billion yuan.

Retail

The annual turnover from retail sales reached 13.78 billion yuan, an increase of 11% from the previous year.

Tourism

Revenue from tourism totaled 1.51 billion yuan, up by 45.0%.

Continued Effects of Market Reform

Imports & exports

The annual value of imports and exports totaled US$910 million, an increase of 39.1% from the previous year.

Foreign investment

Foreign direct investment realized in monetary terms was US$130 million, up 74.5% from the year before.

Urban Construction and Management

Road transport

By the end of 2004, a total of 12,456 km of highways had been open to traffic. The investment in the highway construction during the year totaled 3.31 billion yuan.

Social Undertakings

Science and technology

There were 53 scientific research and development institutions in the region at the year-end.

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 513 and 13,701 respectively.

Culture

The region had a total of 14 professional performing organizations, 23 cultural centers, 5 museums and 21 public libraries.

Public health

There were a total of 1,485 medical and healthcare institutions equipped with 16,830 beds and staffed with 22,846 medical professionals and technicians at the year-end.

Sports

A total of 20.51 million yuan was invested in the construction of public sports and body building facilities. There are 6,943 stadiums and gymnasium across the region.

Welfare and aid

Relief funds totaling 76.39 million yuan were distributed during the year.

Poverty relief

During the year about 47,000 people living in poverty were relocated and some 50,000 began to have enough to eat and wear.

Population, Employment, Social Security and Living Standards

Population

The year 2004 saw births of 90,500, or a birth rate of 15.97‰, and deaths of 28,000, or a mortality rate of 4.79‰. The natural growth rate of the population stood at 11.18‰. At the end of the year, the total population stood at 5.877 million.

Employment

The employed population stood at 2.988 million at the end of 2004, an increase of 74,000 from the previous year-end.

Registered unemployment rate

The registered urban unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Social security

In 2004, insurance plans for endowments, medical treatment, unemployment and industrial injury covered a population of 620,000, 532,000, 350,000 and 150,000 respectively. About 250,000 urban residents received minimum living allowances from the government.

Residents' income

The disposable income of urban residents was 7,218 yuan per capita, up 10.5% from 2003. Rural residents' per capita net income was 2,320 yuan, a growth of 8.6% from the previous year.

Residents' consumption

Urban residents' per capita expenditure was 5,821 yuan, up 9.2% from the previous year while that of rural residents was 1,927 yuan, up 17.7%.

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 ha 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 ha of exploitable meadows, making Ningxia one of the ten major pastures in China. The Weining Plain that features 0.37 million ha 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 kg, 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-ha water surfaces, 10,000 ha 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).