English

By Yin Lei

Economic growth remained robust in most provinces along the Yangtze River and picked up in northeastern China from January to June, as reported by the Shanghai Securities News on Tuesday.

In their mid-year economic reports, 10 out of the 11 provinces and municipalities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, namely Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan, and Guizhou, staged economic growth above the 6.8 percent national average.

Guizhou province topped the list with a two-digit growth rate of 10 percent, which stemmed from its close collaboration with other provinces along the Yangtze River in the fields of tourism, liquor production, talent sharing, and investments.

Investments remained the major growth driver in several of the above provinces that are located in the middle and eastern part of China, where the demand is strong for infrastructure, education and healthcare services. In the southwestern provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou, fixed asset investments were up by 11 percent and 17.4 percent respectively, far ahead of the six-percent national average.

Investments in western China may become more robust as the government aims to shore up the weak links in infrastructure, believed Huang Yong, a researcher at the Guizhou Academy of Social Sciences.

In the three northeastern provinces of China, which stayed in the bottom ranks of the GDP growth for the past few years, the economic landscape began to take a turn for the better, with Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang seeing growth of 5.6 percent, 2.5 percent and 5.5 percent respectively. Sector-wise, investments in manufacturing increased by 31.2 percent in Liaoning, and imports and exports rose by 31.1 percent in Heilongjiang.

Recently, policies aimed at rejuvenating the northeastern provinces are also being carried out. These positive developments will result in fast and high-quality growth there, said Bai Ming, an expert of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area in northern China continued with improvements to their economic structures as they joined hands for concerted developments. New economy in Beijing grew by 15.2 percent to RMB 470.72 billion, making up one-third of its GDP. In Hebei province, value added in the service sector contributed to 45.1 percent of its economy and 70.2 percent to its GDP growth.