gratifying result has been a
strong spurt in production, particularly in agriculture in the early
1980s. Otherwise, the leadership has often experienced in its hybrid
system the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy, lassitude,
corruption) and of capitalism (windfall gains and stepped-up inflation).
Beijing thus has periodically backtracked, retightening central controls
at intervals and thereby undermining the credibility of the reform
process. Popular resistance and changes in central policy have
weakened China's population control program, which is essential to the
nation's long-term economic viability.

_#_GNP: $413 billion (1989 est.), per capita $370 (World Bank est.);
real growth rate 5% (1990)

_#_Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2.1% (1990)

_#_Unemployment rate: 2.6% in urban areas (1990)

_#_Budget: revenues $NA; expenditures $NA, including capital
expenditures of $NA

_#_Exports: $62.1 billion (f.o.b., 1990);

commodities--textiles, garments, telecommunications and recording
equipment, petroleum, minerals;

partners--Hong Kong, US, Japan, USSR, Singapore, FRG (1989)

_#_Imports: $53.4 billion (c.i.f., 1990);

commodities--specialized industrial machinery, chemicals,
manufactured goods, steel, textile yarn, fertilizer;

partners--Hong Kong, Japan, US, FRG, USSR (1989)

_#_External debt: $51 billion (1990 est.)

_#_Industrial production: growth rate 7.6% (1990); accounts
for 45% of GNP

_#_Electricity: 117,580,000 kW capacity; 585,000 million kWh produced,
520 kWh per capita (1990)

_#_Industries: iron, steel, coal, machine building, armaments,
textiles, petroleum, cement, chemical fertilizers, consumer durables,
food processing

_#_Agriculture: accounts for 26% of GNP; 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 8 million metric tons in 1986

_#_Economic aid: donor--to less developed countries (1970-89) $7.0
billion; 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: yuan (plural--yuan); 1 yuan (3) = 10 jiao

_#_Exchange rates: yuan (3) per US$1--5.31 (April 1991),
4.7832 (1990), 3.7651 (1989), 3.7221 (1988), 3.7221 (1987), 3.4528
(1986), 2