Brief Introduction

I. Data for major foreign countries/regions have been adjusted by international organizations such as the United Nations, and the scope and coverage are therefore comparable.

II. The latest data for a certain countries/regions are preliminary or estimated statistics.

III. All data of China do not cover Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR and Taiwan Province.

IV. Data in this chapter are mainly from databases, CD-ROMs, yearbooks and monthly publications of international organizations. Data for China are all taken from international organization databases unless otherwise specified.

V. Some aggregations or rates/ratios may not add up to the sum of the series because of rounding.

VI. The symbol "(blank)" indicates that data are not available.