China's economy witnessed steady progress in 2024, with high-quality development advancing consistently and key targets and tasks successfully achieved, said Kang Yi, director of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), at a press conference in Beijing on Friday
Preliminary estimates show that China's GDP reached 134.9084 trillion yuan (around 18.42 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2024, marking a 5 percent increase compared to the previous year at constant prices, Kang noted.
On a quarterly basis, the GDP growth was 5.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter. The growth rate moderated to 4.7 percent in the second quarter and 4.6 percent in the third quarter, before rebounding to 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter.
"In 2024, facing increasing external pressures and growing internal challenges, China's economy withstood the pressure and tided over difficulties, surpassing 130 trillion yuan in total economic output for the first time. Our economic size remained firmly in the second place globally. On a global scale, China's 5-percent economic growth rate is one of the highest among major economies and China continues to be a key driver of global economic growth," Kang said.
At the press conference, Kang also shared other key economic data for the year of 2024.
Grain production reached a record high, surpassing 700 million tons for the first time. Primary energy production continued to rise, ensuring robust energy supply. Furthermore, China's advantages of having a vast market and a complete industrial system were further strengthened. In 2024, China's total retail sales of consumer goods reached 48.8 trillion yuan, and fixed asset investment hit 51.4 trillion yuan, with domestic demand still a major driving force.
The industrial structure became more optimized. In 2024, the value-added output of industrial enterprises above designated size grew by 5.8 percent year on year. Notably, the share of high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing industries in total value-added output rose to 16.3 percent and 34.6 percent, respectively, up by 0.6 percentage points and 1.0 percentage points compared to the previous year.
Investment in manufacturing technological upgrades increased by 8 percent in 2024, outpacing overall investment. The pace of green and digital transformation accelerated, with key energy-consuming industries such as chemicals, building materials, and steel showing reductions in energy consumption per unit of added value. By the end of 2024, the CNC (Computer Numerical Control) rate for key processes in raw material industries exceeded 75 percent, surpassing the target set for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) ahead of schedule.
Research and development investment intensified to 2.68 percent of the GDP in 2024, with funding for basic research up 10.5 percent. Emerging industries, such as high-end equipment manufacturing and artificial intelligence, saw positive growth trends, with new pillars of the industrial system gradually taking shape.
Meanwhile, new consumption patterns, such as online sales and instant retail, showed accelerating potential. Online retail sales of physical goods grew by 6.5 percent year on year, driving express delivery volumes to new historical highs.
In 2024, China's new-type urbanization continued to advance steadily, with the urbanization rate of the resident population reaching 67 percent by the end of the year, an increase of 0.84 percentage points from the previous year.
At the same time, China made solid strides in ensuring and improving people's livelihoods. The urban surveyed unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points compared to the previous year, and per capita disposable income increased by 5.1 percent in real terms in line with economic growth. The number of people who have shaken off poverty and are employed remained stable at over 30 million for the fourth consecutive year, while significant progress was made in public services such as education, healthcare, and elderly care.
China's economy see steady progress in 2024, with key targets, tasks achieved
The Exhibition Hall of Evidence of Crimes Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army in northeast China's Harbin released on Thursday a 38-minute video of a former member of Unit 731, a notorious Japanese germ-warfare unit during World War II (WWII).
In the footage, former Unit 731 member Tsuruo Nishijima detailed how the unit used meteorological data to carry out bacterial dispersal and frostbite experiments.
The video was recorded in 1997 by Japanese scholar Fuyuko Nishisato and donated to the exhibition hall in 2019, according to the hall, which was built on the former site of the headquarters of Unit 731 in Harbin, capital city of Heilongjiang Province.
Nishijima joined Unit 731 in October 1938 and served in the unit's meteorological squad. The squad was not a simple observation section but rather an auxiliary force supporting the unit's human experiments in the field by measuring wind direction, wind speed and other conditions to ensure optimal experimental results.
Nishijima confirmed in the footage that "the meteorological squad had to be present at every field experiment." He testified to the "rainfall experiments" conducted by Unit 731, which involved aircraft releasing bacterial agents at extremely low altitudes.
At a field-testing site in Anda City, Heilongjiang, Unit 731 aircraft descended to about 50 meters above the ground and sprayed bacterial culture liquids onto "maruta" -- human test subjects -- who were tied to wooden stakes. Each experiment involved about 30 people, spaced roughly 5 meters apart. After the experiments, the victims were loaded into sealed trucks and transported back to the unit, where their symptoms and disease progression were recorded over a period of several days.
Nishijima also revealed that a Japanese military doctor once died after removing the mask and becoming infected during an experiment, indirectly proving the extreme virulence of the bacterial agents.
The video further disclosed details of the meteorological squad's involvement in frostbite experiments. To study wartime needs in frigid regions, the invading Japanese army forced the victims to expose their bodies for five to ten minutes in temperatures ranging from minus 20 to minus 35 degrees Celsius and observed their physical reactions.
"For example, during frostbite experiments, we would be sent outside to observe the weather. They wouldn't bring many people out at once, only two or three, who would be forced to take off their upper garments or all their clothes. In fact, it was already quite tough to stay out there for five to ten minutes, because it was too cold," Nishijima said.
According to the exhibition hall, Unit 731 had a separate frostbite laboratory, with Hisato Yoshimura serving as the leader of the unit's frostbite study squad from 1938 to 1945.
In a paper on frostbite published in 1941, Yoshimura recorded data from live human experiments to study the occurrence of frostbite and pathological changes in the human body under different conditions.
"This is a form from the paper. Titled 'The Severity and Process of Frostbite,' it divides frostbite into three stages. The symptoms of the first-degree frostbite are redness and swelling. Blisters appear in the second stage. And the third-degree frostbite features necrosis and ulceration. It says here that, in the third stage, from the 50th to the 60th day, toes and fingers detached. There is no doubt that these data were obtained through numerous human experiments," said Tan Tian, a researcher of the exhibition hall.
Nishijima's video, a piece of oral history from a perpetrator's perspective, further reconstructs the criminal chain of Unit 731 and once again demonstrates that the invading Japanese army's biological warfare crime was systematic and inhumane, and was an undeniable historical truth, according to the exhibition hall.
"Unit 731's frostbite experiments were essentially conducted to prevent and treat frostbite during combat in cold environments. However, for the so-called prevention and treatment of frostbite, they caused frostbite on living people for experiments and data analysis. So in nature, it still serves the purpose of war," said Jin Shicheng, director of the Department of Publicity, Education and Exhibition at the hall.
Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin as the nerve center for Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during WWII.
At least 3,000 people were used for human experiments by Unit 731, and more than 300,000 people in China were killed by Japan's biological weapons.
Video offers new evidence of Japan's wartime germ-warfare crimes in northeast China
