China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said that over the past five years China's industrial economy has been developing in a healthy, fast and steady way amid structural adjustment, and the country is in the midway of industrialization.

In its latest report, the NBS said that since the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2002, China's industrial economy has reinforced its leading position in national economy. In 2006, the industrial added value hit 9.04 trillion yuan (about US$1.2 trillion), up 57.9 percent from 2002 in constant terms.

Between 2003-2006, the increase of China's industrial production fluctuated between 11.5 percent and 12.8 percent, featuring rapidly expanding scale, output and export. China tops the world in the output of steel, coal, cement, TV sets and cotton fabric, and ranks second in power generation, third in sugar output and fifth in crude oil output.

In 2006, the added value of industrial economy accounted for 43.1 percent of national economy, further consolidating its leading position in the economy. Industrial economy will continue to play an important role in the economy considering that there is still a long way to go to accomplish the industrialization process, the report said.

The internal structure of the industrial economy has had clear improvements, the report said. The great progress of energy and raw materials industries provides strong support to national economy; non-ferrous and non-metal mining products, chemicals and machinery industries have also experienced fast development; and the washing out of obsolete production facilities has helped improve product structure.

It should be noted that different regions of the country have all enjoyed rapid development of industrial economy over the past few years, with the east coastal areas, central China and western China all increasing about 1.9 times, and northeast China up about 1.6 times.

(Xinhua News Agency October 7, 2007)