External debt: $100 billion (1994 est.)
Industrial production: growth rate 17.5% (1994 est.)
Electricity: capacity: 162,000,000 kW production: 746 billion kWh consumption per capita: 593 kWh (1993)
Industries: iron and steel, coal, machine building, armaments, textiles and apparel, petroleum, cement, chemical fertilizers, consumer durables, food processing, autos, consumer electronics, telecommunications
Agriculture: accounts for almost 30% of GDP; among the world's largest producers of rice, potatoes, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, and pork; commercial crops include cotton, other fibers, and oilseeds; produces variety of livestock products; basically self-sufficient in food; fish catch of 13.35 million metric tons (including fresh water and pond raised) (1991)
Illicit drugs: illicit producer of opium; bulk of production is in
Yunnan Province (which produced 25 metric tons in 1994); transshipment
point for heroin produced in the Golden Triangle
Economic aid:
donor: to less developed countries (1970-89) $7 billion
recipient: US commitments, including Ex-Im (FY70-87), $220.7 million;
Western (non-US) countries, ODA and OOF bilateral commitments
(1970-87), $13.5 billion
Currency: 1 yuan (Y) = 10 jiao
Exchange rates: yuan (Y) per US$1 - 8.4413 (January 1995), 8.6187 (1994), 5.7620 (1993), 5.5146 (1992), 5.3234 (1991), 4.7832 (1990) note: beginning 1 January 1994, the People's Bank of China quotes the midpoint rate against the US dollar based on the previous day's prevailing rate in the interbank foreign exchange market
Fiscal year: calendar year