Economy of the People's Republic of China The People's Republic of China is the world's second largest economy after the United States. It is the world's fastest-growing major economy, with average growth rates of 10% for the past 30 years. China is also the largest exporter and second largest importer of goods in the world. China became the world's top manufacturer in 2011, surpassing the United States. For 2010, inbound foreign direct investment into China surpassed $100bn for the first time, and investment overseas by Chinese companies in non-financial sectors totaled $59 billion. The country's per capita GDP is $7,518 in 2010. The provinces in the coastal regions of China tend to be more industrialized, while regions in the hinterland are less developed. As China's economic importance has grown, so has attention to the structure and health of that economy. In the modern era, China's influence in the world economy was minimal until the late 1980s. At that time, economic reforms initiated after 1978 began to generate significant and steady growth in investment, consumption and standards of living. China now participates extensively in the world market and private sector companies play a major role in the economy. Since 1978 hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty: According to China's official statistics, the poverty rate fell from 53% in 1981 to 2.5% in 2005. However, in 2006, 10.8% of people still lived on less than $1 a day (purchasing power parity-adjusted). The infant mortality rate fell by 39.5% between 1990 and 2005, and maternal mortality by 41.1%. Access to telephones during the period rose more than 94-fold, to 57.1%.
In the 1949 revolution, China's economic system was officially made into a communist system. Since the wide-ranging reforms of the 1980s and afterwards, many scholars assert that China can be defined as one of the leading