The foreign exchange reserves increased slightly. At the end of 2014, China’s foreign exchange reserves reached 3,843.0 billion US dollars, an increase of 21.7 billion US dollars as compared with that at the end of the pervious year. At the end of the year, the exchange rate was 6.1428 RMB to 1 USD, an appreciation by 0.8 percent over that of 2013.

II. Agriculture

In 2014, the sown area of grain was 112.74 million hectares, an increase of 780 thousand hectares compared with that in the previous year; the sown area of cotton was 4.22 million hectares, a decrease of 130 thousand hectares; the sown area of oil-bearing crops was 14.08 million hectares, an increase of 60 thousand hectares; the sown area of sugar crops was 1.91 million hectares, a decrease of 90 thousand hectares.

The year 2014 witnessed another harvest of grain. The total output of grain in 2014 was 607.10 million tons, an increase of 5.16 million tons or up by 0.9 percent over the previous year. Of this total, the output of summer crops was 136.60 million tons, increased by 3.6 percent, and that of the early rice was 34.01 million tons, down by 0.4 percent over the previous year. The output of autumn grain was 436.49 million tons, an increase of 0.1 percent. The output of cereal was 557.27 million tons, an increase of 0.8 percent, among which the output of rice was 206.43 million tons, up by 1.4 percent; that of wheat was 126.17 million tons, up by 3.5 percent; and that of corn was 215.67 million tons, down by 1.3 percent.

In 2014, the output of cotton was 6.16 million tons, a decrease of 2.2 percent over the previous year, that of oil-bearing crops was 35.17 million tons, the same as last year and that of sugar crops was 134.03 million tons, a decrease of 2.5 percent, and that of tea was 2.09 million tons, up by 8.7 percent.

The total output of meat for the year reached 87.07 million tons, up by 2.0 percent over the previous year. Of this total, the output of pork was 56.71 million tons, up by 3.2 percent; that of beef was 6.89 million tons, increased by 2.4 percent; and that of mutton was 4.28 million tons, an increase of 4.9 percent, and that of poultry was 17.51 million tons, a decrease of 2.7 percent. The total output of eggs was 28.94 million tons, up by 0.6 percent. The production of milk was 37.25 million tons, up by 5.5 percent. At the end of the year, 465.83 million pigs were registered in the total stocks, down by 1.7 percent, and 735.10 million pigs were slaughtered, up by 2.7 percent.

The total output of aquatic products was 64.50 million tons, up by 4.5 percent. Of this total, the output of cultured aquatic products was 47.62 million tons, up by 4.9 percent; and that of fished aquatic products was 16.88 million tons, up by 3.5 percent over the previous year.

The total production of timber for the year 2014 reached 81.78 million cubic meters, a decrease of 3.1 percent compared with last year.

Over 1.32 million more hectares of farmland were equipped with effective irrigation systems and another additional 2.23 million hectares of farmland was equipped with water-saving irrigation systems.