China's population, which grew by about 110 million in the 1990s, now exceeds 1.2 billion. However, rural villages, where the vast majority of the populace once resided, saw their ranks diminish.
The 1990s was the decade of the metropolis. Almost 40 percent of the populace now make their home in cities and their environs. According to some estimates, the population will soon be equally divided between metropolitan and rural areas.
People in their 20s to 40s make up more than 70 percent of the total population.
Almost 90 percent of the population is concentrated in the eastern part of the nation, comprising 40 percent of the country's land area.
Shanghai and cities in Guangdong province are attracting more and more citizens, increasing the economic divide between wealthy city dwellers and destitute village folks.
The economy grew 10.1 percent on average in the 10 years starting in 1991. Economic growth was driven by exports, including exports by foreign-affiliated firms, which made up 6 percent of total industrial output in 1991 in terms of value. This figure jumped to 26 percent in 1999.
In 1991, 4.8 percent of Chinese firms were private. By 1999, this figure was 18 percent. State-run firms accounted for 56 percent of total industrial output in 1991, but only 28 percent by 1999.
Agricultural output also declined. Production of rice, flour, wheat and other agricultural products shrank by 10.56 percent in 2000 compared with 1999.
Production of fruit and dairy products, on the other hand, has been steadily growing.
On the energy front, oil imports have been surging since the late 1990s. In 2000, some 21.6 percent of China's oil came from foreign nations. The Association for Petroleum Exporting Countries expects this figure to reach 42 percent by 2010, while the International Energy Agency predicts that 61 percent of the oil China consumes by then will be foreign.
