‘Tremendous Advances’ In China

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30635, 29 December 1964, Page 9

‘Tremendous Advances’ In China

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) TOKYO, Dec. 28.

China’s economy made “tremendous advances’ ’in 1964, the New China News Agency yesterday quoted a top Chinese economist as saying.

The vice-president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Yung Lung-Kwei, wrote in the January, 1965, issue of the English-language monthly, “China Reconstructs,” N.C.N.A, said.

The article said that in spite of adverse weather in some areas, the increase in the total value of agricultural output was the highest in recent years, gains being registered in rice, wheat, maize, and millet- No specific figures were given.

Raw cotton increased by hundreds of thousands of tons and oil-bearing plants, sugar cane, tobacco, fruit and vegetables all produced the best harvests in years. Noteworthy progress was made in livestock breeding, particularly in pigs and poultry. The number of pigs in the people’s communes increased by 10 million. The rate of industrial growth topped that of 1963. There were particularly speedy increases in the output of chemical fertilisers, which rose by 50 per cent, and farm machinery. China is now close to selfsufficiency in nearly all the 200 types of rolled steel required for motor vehicles and tractors, and the more than 1000 types needed for ocean shipping and synthetic ammonia manufacturing equipment.

China’s machine-building industry now supplies more than 90 per cent of the country’s needs. Almost all machinery had to be imported formerly. Only 55 per cent was made domestically in 1957. Large vertical coal shafts, the latest steam-power generating equipment, hydro-elec-tric power plants and facilities for refining oil and making chemical fertilisers are

some of the completely Chin-ese-built installations already in service.

Substantial gains over 1963 output were made in over 100 items of the chemical industry. The production last year was 400 times more than in 1949. Newly-established branches include plastics, forestry chemicals, synthetic firbes, synthetic rubber and raw materials and intermediates for dyes and paints. China now trades with 125 countries and regions and has governmental commercial treaties with 38 of them. Trade with Asian and African nations has increased more than three-fold since 1950.