Economic Development

Comprehensive Strength

Since China embarked on the reform and opening up program, Zhejiang has formulated a development approach with its own features and complying with its actual situation in the effort of building up the socialist market economy. Thanks to the rapid economic development, Zhejiang has seen its major economic indices in the front ranks in the country, making it one of the provinces with the fastest economic growth and greatest vitality. In 2002, the provincial GDP rose to 767 billion yuan, 12.3 percent up on the previous year and 4.3 percent higher than the average growth rate in the country. The per capita GDP was 16,570 yuan. The total fiscal revenue and local fiscal revenue were respectively 116.7 billion yuan and 56.7 billion yuan. The GDP, per capita GDP and total fiscal revenue all stood 4th in the whole nation.

Structure of Industries

Currently, the ratio of the first, second and tertiary industrial sectors in Zhejiang is 8.8 : 51.2 : 40.0 and that of grain and cash crops is 54:46. The industrial structure takes light industry as the main sector, whose output value makes up 62 percent of the total. A considerable portion of the heavy industry also belongs to small size metallic, electro-mechanical, light and fine chemical industries. Twenty-four industrial sectors out of a total 36 are labor-intensive, which is more competitive in the market. Of the total number of enterprises , 99.6 percent are medium-and-small size ones. The comprehensive indices of economic results in industry have stood between the 3rd and 5th places among those of all the provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) in China. Agriculture and rural economy have progressed steadily in the development of high performance agriculture and the implementation of strategic reform of structure.

Light, textile and electro-mechanical products in Zhejiang are highly competitive in the international markets. The profit of the seven sectors of textile, garments, feather and leather products, culture-education-sports goods, petro-processing and coking, chemical fibers and general machinery occupies more than one-fifth of that in the respective sectors in the country. A number of enterprises with high market shares, stronger competitiveness and leading positions in their respective sectors in the country have emerged, such as the Wahaha Group Co.,Wanxiang Group Co., and Zhejiang Nice Chemical Industry Co. Ltd.

Structure of Ownership

Zhejiang's economy has been growing with the public sector remaining dominant and diverse sectors of economy developing side by side. Consisting of 991 state-owned or controlled enterprises (SOEs), the public sector has seen its influence and competitiveness persistently strengthened. State-owned assets have been further concentrated in the core fields and key sectors. The proportion of stated-owned and controlled industries in electrics, telecom, tap-water and gas supply exceeds 80 percent, that in capital-intensive rawmaterial industries such as chemicals and metallurgy exceeds 50 percent and that in newly developed technology-intensive industries such as electronics and pharmaceuticals exceeds 40 percent. The SOEs have also created favorable conditions for the development of the private economy through dissemination of products, technology and equipment.

Private economy has been booming in Zhejiang, which is one of the earliest provinces for developing township enterprises (TEs). Now, the province leads the country in the overall development level of TEs. Non-state investment has made up more than half of the total investment in recent years. At the end of 2002, there were totally 247,300 private enterprises with a combined output value of 742.67 billion yuan. Zhejiang takes the first place in the country in the five indices of total output value, total sales volume, retail trade turnover of consumables, foreign currency earnings from export and the number of China's top 500 enterprises in the private sector. Specifically, of the top 500 private enterprises in China, 170 are in Zhejiang, which constitutes the largest group from any single province. Of the ten largest private enterprises in the country, five are in Zhejiang with four of them taking the top five places, namely Jinyi, Jintian, Bangdi, and Feiyue. In the province, 222 trade marks registered by private enterprises have been identified as provincial level famous brands. Thirteen of them such as Transfar, Bushen, Kangnai, Zhengtai and Delix have been listed as national brand names.

Economy of Regional Characteristics

Economy of regional characteristics is flourishing in Zhejiang. It has spread to more than ten fields, over a hundred industrial sectors and thirty agricultural and by-product processing sectors such as manufacturing, processing, construction, transportation, breeding, textiles, trading and services. According to statistics, the total industrial output value of economies with typical regional characteristics in Zhejiang makes up 49 percent of the provincial total. Low-voltage electrical appliances from Yueqing, leather garments from Haining, metal products from Yongkang, pearls from Zhuji, socks from Datang and crystal handicraft from Pujiang all enjoy nationwide acclaim. The various industrial parks are the effective carriers promoting the growth of economies of regional characteristics. Currently, there are 820 industrial parks at and above the county or city level in the province. Some 55 billion yuan has been invested in infrastructure of various industrial parks with specialized parks as the backbone. About 10,000 enterprises are now operating in these parks.

Specialized Markets

Specialized markets in Zhejiang are prosperous. Trading markets are not only numerous but also large in scale, strong in comprehensive capabilities and have radiating impacts. The scope of commodity transaction primarily covers all fields of livelihood and production materials. A network of commodity trade has thus been established with consumer goods markets as the core, specialized markets as the distinctive feature, productive material markets as the backup and other factor markets as complimenting elements. In 2002, there were 4,193 trading markets in the province with a combined turnover of 499.7 billion yuan. Among the markets, 457 saw their annual turnover exceeding 100 million yuan each, 77 exceeding 1 billion yuan each and 6 exceeding 10 billion yuan each.They together have earned Zhejiang the reputation as the "province of big markets" in China. For years, the province has been a national leader in the three areas of market turnover, the number of markets each exceeding 100 million yuan in trading volumes and turnover of individual markets. The Yiwu China Commodity City and Shaoxing China Light Industrial Products and Textiles City are China's two largest specialized markets. In 2002, the turnover of China Commodity City in Yiwu reached 22.998 billion yuan, of which 10.5 billion was from export. These figures put the market on top of the list of markets in China. People from Zhejiang have also set up a number of "Zhejiang Commercial Cities", "Wenzhou Streets" and other markets in different parts of the country and even in Russia, South Africa, the Middle East and South America.

Source: Zhejiang Online