China's economic, social progress in 2023

BEIJING -- Although facing an exceptionally complicated international environment and the arduous tasks of reform, development and maintaining stability in 2023, China has made solid progress on a new journey toward building China into a modern socialist country in all respects.

Here are some related facts and figures from the National Bureau of Statistics:

-- GDP grew 5.2 percent year on year to hit 126.06 trillion yuan (about 17.75 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2023, while the per capita GDP rose 5.4 percent year on year to 89,358 yuan.

-- The tertiary industry accounted for 54.6 percent of GDP, while final consumption expenditure drove GDP growth by 4.3 percentage points.

-- A total of 12.44 million jobs were created in urban areas, up 380,000 from the previous year, and the surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5.2 percent.

-- New economic drivers thrived, with the output of new energy vehicles rising 30.3 percent year on year to 9.44 million, and the output of solar cells expanding by 54 percent from that in 2022.

-- Grain output totaled 695.41 million tonnes, up 1.3 percent year on year. Production of pork, beef, mutton and poultry stood at 96.41 million tonnes, up 4.5 percent year on year.

-- China's value-added industrial output rose 4.2 percent year on year, while that of large enterprises each with an annual main business turnover of at least 20 million yuan climbed 4.6 percent year on year.

-- At the end of 2023, China's power generation grew at a pace of 13.9 percent year on year.

-- The cargo transport volume in China reached 55.7 billion tonnes, up 8.1 percent year on year.

-- The courier sector saw its annual delivery volume exceed 132 billion parcels in 2023, and the revenues of the industry topped 1.2 trillion yuan.

-- Total goods exports and imports reached 41.76 trillion yuan, up 0.2 percent year on year. Service trade rose 10 percent to 6.58 trillion yuan.

-- The number of new foreign-funded companies on the Chinese mainland totaled 53,766, expanding by 39.7 percent year on year.

-- China's per capita disposable income was 39,218 yuan in 2023, up 6.3 percent year on year in nominal terms.

-- Research and development expenditures increased 8.1 percent to 3.33 trillion yuan, accounting for 2.64 percent of GDP.

-- The number of space launches came in at 66.

-- A total of 4.89 billion domestic tourist trips were made, surging by 93.3 percent.

-- The new afforestation area was 4 million hectares, and there were five national parks by the end of 2023.

--The consumption of clean energy accounted for 26.4 percent of total energy consumption, up 0.4 percentage points year on year.