Remarkable achievements were made in the development of basic industries and infrastructure

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's basic industries and infrastructure have been significantly strengthened through large-scale investment and construction, and the supply capacity of agriculture, energy and raw materials has reached a new level. Transportation, posts and telecommunications have formed a network system criss-crossing the country. Water conservancy, environment, education, culture, health and sports facilities have been significantly enhanced. The construction of a large number of major projects, including the Three Gorges Project, the west-east natural gas pipeline, the South-to-North Water Diversion project, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, and the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed Railway, has been successfully completed or pushed forward. The rapid development of basic industries and infrastructure has provided a solid foundation for the development of the national economy and the improvement of people's living standards.

Investment in basic industries and infrastructure construction grew rapidly

Over the past 60 years, China's investment in basic industries and infrastructure construction has grown rapidly. From 1954 to 2008, the total investment in basic industries and infrastructure reached 36,530.4 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 13.7 percent, 2.4 percentage points higher than the average annual growth rate of the national economy during the same period. The construction of basic industries and infrastructure since the founding of the People's Republic of China can be divided into the following four stages of development.

(1) Before the reform and opening up: in the stage of slow development, industrial investment grew relatively fast

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic, our economy was poor and backward, and after a three-year recovery period, we began to implement the first "five-year Plan". From then on, in the nearly 30 years of reform and opening-up, China has carried out large-scale economic construction, and the important content is to carry out large-scale basic industries and infrastructure construction. From 1954 to 1977, China invested 299.6 billion yuan in basic industries and infrastructure construction, with an average annual growth rate of 8.7 percent.

A distinctive feature of the construction of basic industries and infrastructure before the reform and opening up is that the growth rate of industrial investment in basic industries and infrastructure is much higher than that of other industries. From 1954 to 1977, the investment in industrial capital construction reached 118.3 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 12.1 percent, 3.6 percentage points higher than that of agricultural investment and 5.6 percentage points higher than that of tertiary industry investment such as transportation, education and culture. The rapid growth of industrial investment was inseparable from the policy of focusing on industry, especially heavy industry, in the field of economic construction at that time. The state tilted the focus of economic construction to heavy industry, which led to the rapid growth of investment in coal, oil, power and other industries.

Major projects completed during this period included 25 coal projects in Fuxin, Fushun, Hegang and Pingdingshan coal mines, among the "156" key projects that were assisted by the Soviet Union during the first Five-Year Plan period, and 2 oil projects in Liaoning Fushun No. 2 Oil Refinery and Gansu Lanzhou Refinery. There are 25 power projects, including Sanmenxia Water Conservancy project in Henan Province, Fengman Hydropower Station in Jilin Province and Lanzhou thermal Power Station in Gansu Province. "Top Ten" construction projects in Beijing during the second Five-Year Plan period; In 1972, three power plants in Tianjin Beidagang, Tangshan Douhe in Hebei and Yuanbaoshan in Inner Mongolia were introduced in a complete set of 26 projects. The oil fields in Yumen in Gansu Province, Karamay in Xinjiang Province, Shengli in Shandong Province and Daqing in Heilongjiang Province were built and expanded. The Lanxin Line, Chengkun Line, Baolan Line, Jiaozhi Line and other railways have been completed and delivered for operation. A number of ports including Tianjin, Lianyungang, Dalian and Shanghai have been put into use.

Due to the influence of the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution decade", the 30 years before reform and opening up were the lowest annual growth rate of basic industries and infrastructure investment since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

(2) 1978-1989: The initial stage before rapid development, concentrated efforts to increase investment in key industries

In the early days of reform and opening up, the scale of social investment in China was very small, and basic industries and infrastructure were still very weak. In order to change this situation, in the 11 years from 1979 to 1989, the state used limited funds to increase investment in key industries, and a total investment of 547.9 billion yuan was completed in basic industries and infrastructure construction, with an average annual growth rate of 10.7%.