Achievements

New China's road from farming nation to leading automaker

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-01 12:13

As the US auto industry, an emblem of the American spirit, narrowly escaped a sudden collapse, China's auto makers have emerged as a symbol for the nation's industrial advance at New China's 60th founding anniversary parade.

Placing at the center of a float representing the country's industrial development, the car reminds people of the bumpy road of China's industrialization.

"Embark on the road of new socialist industrialization," reads a banner on the float moving past the Tian'anmen Rostrum.

Sixty years ago, political chaos and wars devastated China's industrial system, forcing it to import nearly every basic necessity from grain to match.

Launching the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57), China implemented the former Soviet Union model which emphasized heavy industry. However, the unbalanced model made ordinary people short of daily necessity.

To revive the industrial sector, the government launched a sweeping reform in the late 1970s to inject market forces to boost productivity and make enterprises responsible for their loss and profit.

Overemphasis on heavy industry was shifted to the labor-intensive light industry.

In the late 1970s, the launch of the reform and opening up policies brought in new technology to China's workshops and helped sharpen its manufacturing skills in a variety of sectors such as petrochemical industry, biology and textile.

Now China has become the world's biggest steel maker and the fifth largest oil producer. It is also the largest exporter delivering goods from lighter to satellite to more than 200 countries across the world.

Despite of the gloomy global economy, China's auto production and sales exceeded one million units for the first seven months this year and the country has surpassed United States to become the world's top automaker.

To embrace the next wave of industrial revolution, China has flexed its muscles to construct the world's leading information superhighway and seeks a bigger voice in setting international technical standards.

The self-developed Third-Generation network has been recognized as one of the international telecommunications standard, and has operated in dozens of nations in the world.