South China's Guangdong Scores Double-Digit Economic Growth

South China's Guangdong Province recorded gross domestic product (GDP) of 458.4 billion yuan (about 55.23 billion U.S. dollars ) in the first six months of the year, up 10 percent year-on-year.

Bu Xinmin, head of the Guangdong Provincial Statistics Bureau, said this southern Chinese province scored normal economic performance in the first half of the year.

He said investment has been rising rapidly in the province since the beginning of the year. From January to June, the fixed assets investment totaled 126.4 billion yuan (about 15.23 billion U.S. dollars ), a rise of 13.6 percent from the same period last year or 7.5 percentage points more than the growth rate for the same period last year.

In the first six months of the year, the province experienced rapid expansion in the service trade. Guangdong chalked up 210 billion yuan (about 25.3 billion U.S. dollars ) in retail sales of consumer goods from January to June, up 10.8 percent. During the same period, more than 7 million sq m of apartments were sold in the provinces, up 30.9 percent.

The province also had an inflow of 6.4 billion U.S. dollars of overseas investment in the first six months of the year, up 12.6 percent.

"But as Guangdong enjoys a higher degree of opening-up, the negative impact on Guangdong from the slowdown of the world economy cannot be underestimated," Bu warned, who cited the slow growth in the province's export as an example.

From January to June, the province exported 43.1 billion U.S. dollars worth of commodities, up 0.6 percent from the same period last year or 32 percentage points slower than the growth rate over last year. Among all, export via general trade plunged by 19.2 percent.

The setback in export and the drop in industrial growth demonstrate that Guangdong has entered a new stage in economic development after witnessing high growth in this regard for the past more than two decades. The province has been forming new economic powerhouses, taking pains to adjust and transform economic structures.

Bu was confident that with environment for economic performance being improved, Guangdong would continue to have a steady economic surge in the latter half of the year, and would still be able to meet the pre-set economic growth rate of nine percent for this year.






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