Under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping theory and the important thought of ¡°Three Represents¡±, Zhejiang province upholds the basic theory, line, program and experience of the Party in the new period, emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts, keeping pace with the times while fostering the ¡°Zhejiang Spirit¡±, featuring unceasingly strive, firm and indomitable stance, enterprising spirit and stress of actual results, Zhejiang province has blazed a road of development with its characteristics in the process of reform and opening up.

First, the economic development has entered the middle and later stage of industrialization. Zhejiang had long been a province mainly depended on agriculture. After 20 years of development since the reform and opening up, Zhejiang is now a province of strong economy with industry as the guiding sector. From 1978 to 2002, its GDP achieved an annual increase of 13%, rising from RMB£¤12.4 billion to RMB£¤ 767 billion, which ranked from 12th to 4th place among all China¡¯s provinces. The GDP per capita rose from 13th place to 4th, from RMB£¤331 to RMB£¤16570, an annual increase of 12.1% average. The volume of exports of Zhejiang province increased from US$5 million to US$29.4 billion, a 30.3% annual growth rate, which leaped to 4th place in China. Fiscal revenue ranked 4th place, rising from US$2.7 billion to US$116.7 billion, an annual increase of 17%; the disposable per capita income of urban residents and the per capita net income of rural residents both ranked 3rd place, with an annual increase of 7.6% and 8.7%, reaching RMB£¤11716 and RMB£¤4940 respectively. The ratio among primary, secondary and tertiary industries changed from 38.1:43.3:18.6 in 1978 to 8.8: 51.2:40 in 2002.

Second, fundamental changes have taken place in urban and rural infrastructure construction. The backwardness of infrastructure has long limited the development of Zhejiang province. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Zhejiang started with the reform in investment and finance mechanism, and has publicized several policies in certain areas in succession. In the traffic construction, Zhejiang adopted the policy of ¡°asking for loan, building, collecting fees and paying the debt all done by oneself¡±; in building of conservancy projects, it carried out the policy of ¡°financing, building, collecting fees, paying the debt and administrating all done by oneself¡±. Zhejiang mobilizes strengths of all fields in a joint effort to develop infrastructure by deploying various ways of financing, including the sell of land with compensated payment, and funding through getting listed abroad. In recent years in particular, on seizing the opportunity of stimulating the domestic demand while carrying our proactive fiscal policy, Zhejiang province has stepped up its efforts in urban and rural infrastructure, giving priority to the implementation of six ¡°One Thousand¡± projects. These are: to build 1000 km of standard seawall, 1000 km of standard dikes along the Qiantang river, 1000 km of high-grade roads, generating sets of 1000 wan (ten million) kilowatt level, airport with handling capacity of 1000 wan (ten million) person-time, and 1000 wan (ten million) Mus of standard farmlands. So far, the total mileage of railroad in Zhejiang province is 1500 kilometers (including multiple tracks), and the total mileage of high-grade road is 3377 kilometers, including 1307 kilometers of expressways. Based on these, Zhejiang has brought about a ¡°4-hour traffic network¡±, which promises to reach any other central cities in the province within 4 hours from its capital city Hangzhou. It also has 58 berths with 10,000-dwt capacity or above and a group of harbors with the major ones being Ningbo, Zhoushan, Wenzhou, Haimen, and Zhapu. In 2002, the volume of freight handled by main harbors reached 250 million tons, with 2.077 million standardized containers. Beilun Harbor in Ningbo city ranks the 2nd in China in terms of annual handling capacity. In Zhejiang, the annual handling capacity of airports is 14.5 million person-time; the installed capacity of electricity generators is 20.67 million kilowatt; the long-distance optical fiber stretches 14.5 thousand kilometers; and the capacity of telephone exchange reached 18.8 million sets. In recent years, Zhejiang also newly constructed 10.18 million Mus of standard farmlands, 1280 kilometers of high-standard seawall, 1070 kilometers of high-standard dikes along the river, and 967 kilometers of anti-flood dike in urban areas, which all contribute to build an iron great wall against typhoon along the coast.

Third, social undertakings are witnessing comprehensive improvement. Accelerating the reform in science and technology system, Zhejiang is relatively early in China to carry out reforms in scientific research institutes. It explores the way of combining the essential factors of production (e.g. technologies and management) with income distribution and has set up the first online technology market in China, featuring the exchange of scientific researches and services. Propelling the combination of production, study and research in an all-round way, Zhejiang province has devoted major efforts to develop private science and technology enterprises, which have a numbered of 12 thousand so far. Zhejiang also ranked 7th in China in terms of the comprehensive strength of science and technology. Education undertakings, especially higher education has developed vigorously. Universal nine-year compulsory education was in the main established and near-elimination of illiteracy among young people and adults was also achieved in 1997, three years ahead of schedule. In 2002, and the rate of junior high school graduates going on to senior high school is 84%. In its active support to Zhejiang University, which is striving for the first-class University of the world, Zhejiang province has invested RMB£¤ 8600 million as the collective fund for key projects and for the ¡°211 Project¡±. Meanwhile, it has mapped out a program to build six special zones for higher education, with a total scheduled investment of RMB£¤21.9 billion, dimension of construction 11.39 million square meters, and a planed accommodation of 37 universities, 330 thousand students. By the end of 2002, RMB£¤9.5 billion Yuan had been utilized, 3.74 million square meters completed, and 23 universities with 115 thousand students had got their place. Breakthroughs have been scored in the higher education sector after years of endeavor. In 2002, the admission rate of university entrance examination in Zhejiang rose from 31.8% in 1997 to 73%, and the proportion of students receiving higher education grew from 7.9% to 20%, which indicated that Zhejiang had entered a stage of popularized higher education. It is also the leading province to put forward the mission of building a province strong in culture. Culture undertakings are flourishing day by day, and culture industry is developing rapidly. The project to make radio and television services universal in every village and households has been by and large fulfilled. Works in fields like public health, sports, family planning, and environmental protection all have strengthened unceasingly. The deteriorating trend in ecological environment has been on the whole restrained initially.

Fourth, people¡¯s living standards have made historical leap to being well-off. According to the 16 monitoring standards issued in ¡°Basic Criterion for Comparatively well-off Standard of Living in China¡± by State Statistics Bureau, Zhejiang province met the criterion in full-scale as early as in 1999. In 2002, the saving deposits of urban and rural residents amounted to RMB£¤523.4 billion, and the average living space per capita reached 20.7 square meters and 49.5 square meters for urban and rural residents respectively. 45.9% residents have installed telephones, and 31.4% for mobile phones. The province has 3.15 million internet users, and the number of the people receiving the basic old-age insurance benefits, medical insurance benefits and unemployment insurance benefits is 7.01 million, 4.234 million and 3.90 million respectively, while the monthly old-age pension for retirees is RMB£¤800, ranking 3rd throughout the country. In 2001, Zhejiang took the lead in China to set up the minimum standard of living guarantee system for both urban and rural residents according to law.