THE 11 MOST IMPORTANT ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES IN CHINA - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

Some of China's economic activities are agriculture, livestock, oil, mining, textiles, tourism and hospitality, and even technology. Economic activities are all actions carried out in a society, region or country with the objective of producing goods or offering services necessary for their livelihood and generating wealth.

Each country, according to its geographical situation, climate and social characteristics, develops different economic activities. Although most of the nations of the world are inserted in a capitalist economic model, their economic activities vary not only between one country and another, but also between the various regions of the same country, and also change according to the historical moment in which they are called. cross.

Wars, regional economic crises, natural disasters, good or bad governments and technological advances are some of the factors that affect the emergence or decline of certain economic activities in a given country.

Primary, secondary and tertiary economic activities

Primary economic activity is understood to be all that which uses natural resources. The main and most common are agriculture and livestock, fishing, mining and forestry; Wind, hydroelectric or solar power generation can also be included in this group.

Secondary activities include all those that are derived or are a consequence of the previous primary activity. That is, the conversion that is made to what is obtained by cultivating the land, raising livestock, operating a mine or selling energy. In short, the secondary activity transforms raw materials into manufactured products.

Tertiary activities are the services provided to carry out primary and secondary activities; They are very numerous, but one can mention transportation, sales, administration, accounting jobs, advertising, insurance companies, banks, telephone and internet services, and so on.

Under these initial premises, we will then comment on the main economic activities of China in the last decade.

China's main economic activities

China is the second largest economy on the planet, second only to the United States. Its growth in the last three decades has been exponential and, although it has progressively slowed down since the world economic crisis of 2008-2009, the annual growth of this giant averages 6 points.

Analysts and experts from the World Bank consider that by 2050 China will be the world's leading economic power, leaving behind the rest of the economies that are strong today.

China is the first exporter and the second importer in the world. All the figures that refer to this country will be enormous and striking, but the fact that China has a population of almost 1.4 billion people, compared to 320 million of its closest economic competitor, the United States should not be overlooked., in a territory with very similar surfaces (9,597 million km² against 9,834 million km2 in the United States).

Primary activities

1- Agriculture

It employs a third of the workforce and represents between 9% and 10% of GDP, a figure not less if one takes into account that only 15% of the land in all of China is arable.

In this sector the cultivation of rice and other cereals such as sorghum, soy, corn, wheat and barley stands out; plus cotton, potatoes, and tea.

2- Livestock

China is one of the main producers of sheep and pork (it produces 49.8% of all the pork consumed on the planet), in addition to chicken and its derivatives (eggs), fish and shellfish.

3- Mining

China has large reserves of coal, which is why it is the main producer and consumer of this mineral, since 70% of its energy is produced with it.

In addition, it produces 1.8 billion tons of cement, 60% of world production.

It also leads the production of other metallic minerals: it is the fifth gold producer in the world and one of the most important in iron, steel, aluminum, copper, tin, zinc and titanium. It also produces non-metallic minerals such as salt, asbestos, gypsum, and fluorite.

4- Oil

It is the fifth largest oil producer in the world with 3.8 million barrels, and the second largest consumer after the United States. It also has significant proven natural gas reserves.

Primary activities represent 10% of Chinese GDP.

Secondary activities

The Chinese industry is relevant and constantly developing; it ranks second in the world, after the United States. The main industries are manufacturing and construction.

Thanks to its cheap labor, China is home to many transnational manufacturing companies, although this is slowly changing and China is moving towards producing its own export-quality manufacturing. The most prominent industries are:

5- Textile and footwear sector

Mostly companies with foreign capital and little local added value, although this is changing, as already mentioned.

6- Air conditioners, lamps and panels

Air conditioners represent 17 times more units than the average of any other country; energy- saving lamps (4,300 million units per year, 80% of the world total) and solar panels that generate 80% of the kilowatts of the entire planet.

7- Cars and other transport vehicles such as airplanes and ships (China builds 45% of the ships in the world)

Secondary activities represent 47% of Chinese GDP.

Tertiary activities

In this sector, China is the third largest after the United States and Japan, but suffers from relative stagnation due to the presence of public monopolies and many state regulations.

Even so, it represents 43% of GDP and employs more than half of the economically active population.

In this sector, the following stand out:

8- Tourism and hospitality

9- Retail trade

Quaternary activities

With the imminent arrival of technology in the second half of the twentieth century and understood as a fundamental piece of human development in the twenty-first century, a new component arises that some place as advanced tertiary or “quaternary” activity, which includes all the technological and scientific activities.

In this sector, China leads with the research, development and manufacture of cutting edge technology, mainly in the area of ​​electronic devices.

Until a decade ago, China was known as an assembler of technological parts without added value, but now it is a country that manufactures and exports quality products that can compete with the Japanese, North Americans and Europeans as equals.

The main products in this sector are:

10- Personal computers

In 2014 it produced 286.2 million units, more than 90% of all world production.

11- Mobile phones

About 70% of all cell phones in the world are manufactured and / or assembled in China.

References

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