Investment impetus to support economy
In the past decade, the earthquake-struck areas have spared no effort in promoting investment and increasing consumer demand, in a bid to inject vitality into local economic development.
The scale of investment has steadily expanded. Since 2009, the 39 disaster-stricken counties have invested a large amount of funds for rehabilitation and industrial development.
Between 2009 and 2017, the 39 counties achieved more than 3.5 trillion yuan (550 billion U.S. dollars) in fixed asset investment (FAI). The FAI in 2017 was 542.4 billion yuan (85.2 billion US dollars), 4.4 times that of 2008.
Accelerated consumer demand
The consumer goods market also witnessed significant development.
The total retail sales of consumer goods in the 39 counties exceeded 100 billion yuan (15.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2010, and 200 billion yuan (31.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015. In 2017, it was close to 300 billion yuan (47.1 billlion U.S. dollars), reaching 294 billion yuan (46.2 billion U.S. dollars), which was four times that of the 2008 figure (73.7 billion yuan, or 11.6 billion U.S. dollars).
