Southern Chinese Province Trying To Increase Economic Growth

GUANGZHOU, August 5 (Xinhua) -- South China's Guangdong Province plans to develop new measures to encourage consumer spending.

Some existing policies that hinder consumer spending will be taken off the books, according to a local official who says that the province will try to increase consumer spending on housing, tourism, and education.

The province had 13.4 percent growth in retail sales of consumer goods from January to June and expects a rise of 11.5 percent for the year. The new measures are expected to help offset the negative impact of falling exports.
Guangdong only exported 32. 26 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods in the first six months, a drop of 12.2 percent from last year.

But, the province still had a GDP of 367.6 billion yuan from January to June, up 9.6 percent. The growth is largely attributed to growing domestic demand.

Huang Weihong, director of the Provincial Development Planning Commission, says that Guangdong's fixed assets investment will go up around 10 percent this year. A total of 104.5 billion yuan was spent on fixed assets in the first six months, a 21.5 percent increase over the same period last year.