Guangdong Expects Higher Economic Growth in 2000Guangdong Province, China's forerunner of reform and opening-up, expects to have a higher economic growth rate this year than it had in 1999.The prediction was made recently by Bu Xinmin, head of Guangdong Provincial Statistics Bureau. According to Bu, Guangdong created 406.28 billion yuan (US$48.95 billion) in gross domestic product (GDP) in the first six months of the year, up 10. 6 percent from the same period last year. The growth rate is one percentage point higher than for the same period last year, suggesting an improvement in the province's economic prosperity status. Bu explained that Guangdong's economic growth reached its peak in the early 1990s, but started to slow down from 22.3 percent in 1993 to 9.4 percent in 1999. He was confident that Guangdong's first economic recovery in six years would take place in the new millennium, because there was a notable rising tendency in the province's economic performance, and the economic growth rate in the second quarter of the year was higher than that in the first quarter. From January to June, the province reported increases of 13 percent, 6.1 percent, 32.8 percent in total retail sales of consumer commodities, fixed assets investment, and exports, respectively. The statistics bureau chief attributed the province's faster economic growth this year to the effects from the implementation of a range of state and provincial policies designed to increase investment, spur consumption and economic recovery and the province's efforts to optimize economic structure and improve economic performance. It is also due to Guangdong's improved economic development and a faster growth in world economy and international trade. Propelled by an increase in demand, the industrial sector of the province created 189.5 billion yuan (US$22.83 billion) in added value in the first six months of the year, up 12.5 percent, or one percentage point more than that for the same period last year. |
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