ABSTRACT
The story in the heavy industry sector is one of growth based on the province' s coal reserves . Outlining the prospects for Shanxi under the Seventh FYP, governor Wang Senhao announced that planned invest ment would be 17 billion yuan RMB, an increase of 75 per cent over the Sixth FYP. Of this , over four-fifths was for the coal and power industries , and railway projects . 1 5 The emphasis on the extraction industries is directly related to the development of the heavy industry sector as a whole . For example , thermal-powered electricity generating plants in Shanxi made use of the province' s coal resources to boost out put by 83 per cent between 1980 and 1986, and other coal-intensive industries such as pig iron and steel production have also benefited from being located locally . 1 6 Not all coal-intensive industries have been successful : the production of chemical fertilizers fell by roughly a fifth between 1984 and 1986 . 1 7 None the less , those industries that supply the mining and energy sectors have seen their production levels soar . For example, the output of the mining equipment industry increased by 83 . 8 per cent during 1985 , and then by a further 2 1 . 9 per cent the following year . The production of electricity transformers similarly increased by 3 1 .9 per cent and 1 3 . 6 per cent during the same years . 1 8
Although there has been some progress in the production of manufac tured goods , all other industries in Shanxi exist in the shadow of the coal industry . State coal-mines alone employ 1 4 . 3 per cent of the pro vincial work force , and the industry ' s share of the output value of all industry is a massive 20. 8 per cent . With the electricity-generating industry accounting for 6 .4 per cent of the total , the two industries alone produce more output value than the whole of the light industrial sector .
