China by the Numbers
While the economy is slowing, there's still plenty of demand
by Malcolm Scott [1]
China's Premier Li Keqiang Thursday announced a slower economic growth target of about 7% for 2015. Is that bad news for the world?
Some of the other numbers detailed in his 39-page work report suggest there's still plenty of demand stemming from the world's second-largest economy (FXI). Here are a few:
The number of broadband Internet users exceeded 780 million, more than the populations in the euro area and U.S. combined.
[2]
An extra 230,000 kilometers (142,915 miles) of roads were built or upgraded in rural areas — that's longer than five times the circumference of the earth at the equator.
An additional 8,427 kilometers of rail lines were put into operation and the length of high-speed rail up and running reached 16,000 kilometers — that's now more than 60 percent of the world's total.
Construction started on 7.4 million government-subsidized housing units. If we estimate three people in each, that could house every man, woman and child in Australia.
[3]
The number of people living in poverty in rural areas was reduced by 12.32 million last year — that's more than the population of Greece.
More than 66 million additional people gained access to safe drinking water — matching France's population.
Farmland under water-saving irrigation increased by 2.23 million hectares — bigger than Israel's land mass.
The number of newly-registered market entities reached 12.93 million.
This year, the number of college graduates will reach 7.49 million — almost Switzerland's entire population.
And guess what: There's still "ample room for growth," Li said.
Courtesy of Bloomberg.com [4]