China's four traditional industries earned 47 billion yuan in profits in 2001 by reducing and discarding outdated production capacities, according to a senior government official.
Shi Wanpeng, vice-minister of the State Economic and Trade Commission, said that textile, metallurgy, sugar refining and coal mining are China's four major traditional industries.
For years inefficient redundant construction resulted in serious excessive production capacities of these industries and overstock of products, and plunged the industries into loss makers.
For instance, the country's textile industries incurred a loss of 4.5 billion yuan a year, more than any other industry. The metallurgical industry reported a steady decrease in economic returns despite an annual increase in steel production. The sugar-refining industry made a total loss of 10 billion yuan in four years.
By the end of 2000, the 12 industries under state monitoring turned from money losers into moneymakers, but the coal mining industry still incurred a huge loss.
According to Shi, to help traditional industries eliminate losses, the State Council, China’s highest administrative body, decided to regulate the total output, shut down small factories and mines, discard outdated production capacities and make structural adjustments.
As a result of four years' adjustments, he said, in 2001 the textile industry made 22 billion yuan in profit, the metallurgical industry, 20 billion yuan, the sugar-refining industry, 1.5 billion yuan, and the coal mining industry, 3.4 billion yuan.
(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2002)
