Infrastructure in China varies from fairly good to very poor. Resources for industry are currently heavily constrained by infrastructure shortages. The government
| Communications | |||||||||
| Country | Newspapers | Radios | TV Sets a | Cable subscribers a | Mobile Phones a | Fax Machines a | Personal Computers a | Internet Hosts b | Internet Users b |
| 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1998 | 1998 | 1998 | 1998 | 1999 | 1999 | |
| China | N/A | 333 | 272 | 40.0 | 19 | 1.6 | 8.9 | 0.50 | 8,900 |
| United States | 215 | 2,146 | 847 | 244.3 | 256 | 78.4 | 458.6 | 1,508.77 | 74,100 |
| Japan | 578 | 955 | 707 | 114.8 | 374 | 126.8 | 237.2 | 163.75 | 27,060 |
| Russia | 105 | 418 | 420 | 78.5 | 5 | 0.4 | 40.6 | 13.06 | 2,700 |
| a Data are from International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication Development Report 1999 and are per 1,000 people. | |||||||||
| b Data are from the Internet Software Consortium ( http://www.isc.org ) and are per 10,000 people. | |||||||||
| SOURCE: World Bank. World Development Indicators 2000. | |||||||||
recognizes infrastructure as the key to achieving full-industrialized status and to offsetting a diminishing cheap labor advantage. Energy and transportation needs in particular have stalled growth and fueled inflation , while telecommunications is acknowledged as a requirement for further economic growth.
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