Time flew by, and amid all the busyness, it was once again the end of the year.
This was Wang Ye's first year in office, and it was time for him to present his first "report card."
Setting aside military affairs, diplomacy, personnel matters, and the like, since ordinary citizens could not really feel the changes in those areas, what everyone cared about most was naturally economic development.
Had the country truly become wealthier? How much had GDP grown? Those were the questions people were most interested in!
The government also released this year's fiscal report, disclosing various economic figures to the entire nation.
In 2009, the country's GDP reached 2.9 trillion US dollars!
Last year, total GDP had only barely reached 2 trillion. This year, it had surged by 900 billion, for a growth rate as high as 45%!
When many people first saw this figure, they found it hard to believe and thought there had been a mistake.
Or that it had simply been fabricated!
However, the fiscal authorities also provided detailed statistical data in the report and specifically explained why GDP had grown so rapidly this year.
For one thing, many major fixed-investment projects had come online this year. Several major Japanese automakers had officially begun production at their factories and started exporting to other European countries. Samsung's several major projects alone had total investments exceeding 20 billion US dollars, along with state investment in infrastructure and so on.
These fixed investments alone came close to 300 billion US dollars!
And fixed investment was included in GDP figures...
Second, due to the economic crisis in Europe and the United States, combined with Russia's own continued economic strength, the Ruble's exchange rate had risen substantially!
Reflected in GDP calculated in US dollars, that effectively added nearly another twenty