Thanks to its generous inputs, China has seen its basic industries and infrastructure improve dramatically since 2002, according to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

From 2003 to 2006, China made a total fixed-assets investment of 12.03 trillion yuan (US$1.61 trillion) in basic industries and infrastructure sectors, such as agriculture, energy, transport, telecom and public facilities, the NBS report said.

That more than doubled investment during the 1978-2002 period and represented an average annual growth of 26.1 percent during the four years.

The NBS attributed the impressive growth to the importance the central authorities have attached to the sector since the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China convened in 2002. Policymakers have increased inputs in those sectors and encouraged foreign and domestic private investors to make more investment.

All this has provided a solid foundation for future economic growth and significantly improved the well-being of the common people, the report said.

Among those sectors, the basic raw material industry registered the highest annual growth - 50.1 percent - in terms of investment they had each received, according to the report.

The central and western regions have become bigger beneficiaries of the national policy on infrastructure investment, the report said.

In 2006, for example, the regions registered 68,678 projects in the basic industry and infrastructure sectors, accounting for two-thirds of the national total and 6.4 percentage points higher than in 2002.

From 2003 to 2006, the two regions had an investment in basic industries and infrastructure of 6.17 trillion yuan, with an annual growth rate of 29.6 percent, 3.5 percentage points higher than the national average.

In the 2003-06 period, a total of 557.3 billion yuan of budgeted State funds were earmarked for those regions, accounting for 62.6 percent of the national total and 6.1 percentage points higher than in 2002.

This has eased the capital thirst of those regions and helped attract more non-State investors, the report said.

Thanks to the increased investment, a number of major infrastructure projects, such as the Qinghai-Tibet railway and the "grain for green" projects, in which cultivated farmland is converted into forest, have been completed.

They have improved local living standards and helped narrow the growth gap between the western and eastern regions, the report said.

The increased investment in basic industries and infrastructure has helped build a number of major projects nationwide that have great bearing on the well-being of the nation. The project that transmits power from energy-rich west to the east, for example, has transmitted 34,200 megawatts of electricity to ease the power shortage of the more prosperous east.

Regarding agriculture, the increased investment in reservoirs and irrigation facilities have helped stabilize grain output, which was 497 million tons in 2006, 8.8 percent more than in 2002.

Energy production is another beneficiary of the increased investment, the report said.