Guangxi Reports Steady Economic Growth

South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region expects to record 7.2 percent economic growth this year, with a gross domestic product amounting to 203.6 billion yuan.

According to a recent regional conference on development planning, economy, trade and finance said that Guangxi's revenue for this year will be 22 billion yuan, up 9.4 percent from last year.

The state's policies to spur domestic demand have increased local residents' spending tendencies. The region's total retail sales of consumer commodities are expected to go up by 8.8 percent this year, up one percent from last year.

In the meantime, the region has also seen recovering growth in foreign trade, with exports estimated to go up by 16.3 percent over last year. Spending on fixed assets will reach 66 billion yuan this year, up 6.4 percent from last year.

Guangxi has achieved noticeable success with reform of state-owned enterprises. In the first 11 months of the year, state-owned enterprises realized 2.23 billion yuan in profit, ten times last year's statistics.

A total 138 out of the region's 245 major state-owned enterprises have met the pre-set goal of moving out of difficult financial situations within three years. Only 21.9 percent of the major state-owned enterprises are still losing money.

Twelve of the region's 14 major industries have become profit-making businesses. Guangxi, which produces 40 percent of the country's sugar, raked in some 400 million yuan in profit from the sugar-making industry in the 1999/2000 grinding season.

The region has made progress by adjusting economic structure.

While reducing the sown area of grain and sugarcane and increasing the growing area of economic crops, such as vegetables, fruits, tobacco and medicinal herbs, Guangxi has made efforts to carry out technical upgrading in the sectors of sugar-making, automobiles, non-ferrous metals, paper-making, food and pharmaceuticals, and to vigorously expand high-tech industries and increase production of industrial products.






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