Since reform and opening up, through large-scale investment and construction, the basic industry that once was the “bottleneck” of national economy has been enhanced by a big margin both in production capability and infrastructure level, the investment environment and existence environment has been greatly improved, the people’s living qualities has been constantly increased, which paved a firm foundation for national economy to develop healthily and stably. 

Water conservancy, agriculture, forestry, husbandry and fishery: by the end of 2002, altogether 85 thousand reservoirs have been constructed with the overall storage capacity of 559.4 billion cubic meters; 273.7 thousand km of embankment have been refitted and freshly built; 5,691 irrigation sections as large as over 10,000 mu have been established with 838 million mu of effective irrigation areas in the whole country and 279 million mu water-saving irrigation areas; and 418 motor-pumped wells have irrigated 246 million mu. The large-scale farming land water conservancy construction has safeguarded agriculture to maintain high and stable yielding and to ensure bumper harvest for years running. By late 2002, the national grain turnout reached 457.11 million tons, cotton 4.92 million tons and oil 29 million tons. 

Energy industry: The period of 1978-2001 witnessed altogether 466.72 million tons of newly increased crude coal exploitation, 293.31 million tons of natural raw oil exploitation, 27.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas exploitation and 254.17 million kw of freshly increased generating set capacity. By the end of 2002, the national crude coal output arrived at 1.11 billion tons, raw oil 170 million tons and electricity generation volume 1.640 trillion kwh. 

 The Communications and Transport Industry: the period of 1978-2001 saw accumulated 18,167 km of new railways turn to operation, 576.61 million tons of handling capacity of the coastal harbors, 16.937 km of newly built highways and 161,056 km of long distance cable. Now backboned by railway, the comprehensive transport network consists of highway, waterway and civil aviation and pipeline has been basically formed. The railway mileage ascended from 21.8 thousand km in 1949 to 71.5 thousand km in 2002, increased 2.28 times. The highway milestone ascended from 80.7 thousand km in 1949 to 1.76 million km in 2002, increased 20.8 times, and the highway grades elevated obviously and the path condition improved greatly. After dredging up the inland watercourse, the navigation conditions also greatly improved, the navigation mileage increased from 73.6 thousand km in 1949 to 121.5 thousand km in 2002. Civil aviation, the fastest transportation method developed in our country, has opened 1,143 international and national flight courses, which consisted the blue-sky transport network extending in all directions.  

The Posts and Telecommunications Industry has established a nationwide and world-reaching public telecom network including optic fibers, digital microwave, program-controlled exchange and mobile communication. A densely covered public post network with complete services has been built. At present, post offices have covered 77.6% countries and towns. 100% countries and towns have access to telephones and have entered automatic network of long distance call. The scale of telephone network expanded rapidly. The total capacity of country’s telephone exchangers skyrocketed from 4.059 million in 1978 to 2833 million in 2002. The scale of network rapidly developed to rank the second in the world. Mobile telecom and digital communication have grown out of nothing and developed rapidly and violently. In 2002, the user of mobile telecom amounted to 207 million. The users of fixed and mobile phones have topped 421 million. The popularity rate of telephones has increased from 0.4 per hundred persons in 1978 to 33.7 per hundred persons in 2002.