Chinese economy continues to recover with strong momentum

Recent statistics indicated that the Chinese economy is continuing to recover with strong momentum, CCTV.com reported on Saturday.

The volume of road cargo transport was 5.45 billion tons from January to February, an increase of 7.8 percent on a yearly basis, and the volume of waterway cargo transport was 1.40 billion tons, up 10.2 percent year-on-year during the same period, according to data released by the Ministry of Transport on March 29.

The port cargo throughput was 261,500 tons through to February, an increase of 8.1 percent on a yearly basis, and container throughput at the port was 49.51 million twenty-foot equivalent units, up 12.1 percent year-on-year from January to February.

The road trips in China from January to February was 10.87 billion, an increase of 10.3 percent year-on-year.

As of the end of February this year, the total number of 5G base stations in China reached 3.51 million, accounting for nearly thirty percent of the total number of mobile base stations, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed.

Additionally, the data also shows that, as of the end of February this year, China has a total of 1.75 billion mobile phone users, among which 851 million are 5G users, accounting for nearly 50 percent, exceeding 4G users by nearly 100 million.

From the perspective of data usage, as of the end of February this year, China's cumulative mobile internet traffic reached 48.76 billion gigabytes, with 5G user access traffic increasing by 59.8 percent year-on-year, accounting for 53.3 percent.

Currently, enterprises have obtained over 70 percent of the domestic valid invention patents in China, with the number exceeding 3 million units, according to data released by China National Intellectual Property Administration on March 29.

The industrialization rate of invention patents owned by Chinese enterprises reached 51.3 percent in 2023, surpassing 50 percent for the first time and increasing by 3.2 percentage points compared to the previous year, marking the fifth consecutive year of growth, according to the administration's latest report on patent investigation.

The total number of medical assistance beneficiaries in China increased from 9.69 million in 2005 to 250 million in 2023, a growth of approximately 25 times, according to the National Healthcare Security Administration.

Starting from March 31 until Oct 26, China's civil aviation implements the flight schedule for the 2024 summer-autumn season. In this new season, a total of 188 domestic and foreign airline companies plan to operate approximately 122,000 passenger and cargo flights per week, with the volume of international passenger flights continuing to grow.

The development momentum of unmanned aerial vehicle flying activities in China was strong in 2023. By the end of 2023, there were 1.27 million registered UAVs in China, up 32.2 percent year-on-year, and there were 194,000 licensed UAV operators at the same time.

Civilian drones have led the industry's popularity in fields such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishing and recreational aerial photography, according to Civil Aviation Administration of China.

The large-scale afforestation and grass planting campaign of the Three-North Shelterbelt Program is about to begin and this year, the program, dubbed as the largest afforestation project in the world, will require approximately 1.8 billion saplings of various kinds. Currently, the overall supply of saplings is adequate, according to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.