China’s construction industry grows rapidly since 1949

China’s construction industry has seen rapid growth since 1949, according to a report issued by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The output value of the industry totaled 23.5 trillion yuan in 2018, 4,124 times that of 1952. The average annual growth rate reached 13.4 percent, said the report.

The added value accounted for 8.2 percent of the country’s GDP last year, 6.8 percentage points higher than in 1979.

Construction enterprises have increased alongside the booming industry, with more than 1.2 million enterprises in the sector last year.

Meanwhile, corporate strength has improved significantly. In 2018, 69 Chinese mainland companies were included in the list of the top 250 international contractors released by Engineering News-Record (ENR), an American weekly magazine on the construction industry, ranking first among global countries for the fourth time in a row.

The fast-growing industry has boosted employment. By the end of 2018, 55.63 million people were employed in the sector, accounting for 7.2 percent of the nation’s total, an increase of 5.6 percentage points over the 1980 figure.

With the maturing of technologies and an improvement in skills, Chinese enterprises have completed world-class construction projects at home, such as the Three Gorges Dam and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

They have also expanded their business overseas. China-Myanmar oil pipelines and the Mohammed VI Bridge in Morocco and other facilities built by Chinese enterprises have won widespread praise in recent years.