Chinese regions announce economic numbers

Twenty-seven Chinese provincial level regions announced their economic results for the first half of this year, with Guangdong province taking first place, ThePaper reported on Tuesday.

The data showed Guangdong's GDP reached 5.72 trillion yuan in the first half of this year, an increase of 13 percent from a year earlier. Jiangsu and Shandong provinces took second and third spots with GDPs of 5.5 trillion and 3.89 trillion yuan respectively, showing growth of 13.2 and 12.8 percent year-on-year.

Hubei province's GDP growth is highest among the 27 provincial-level regions in the first half of this year, with GDP surging 28.5 percent year-on-year to 2.27 trillion yuan. Hubei is also the only province whose GDP growth surpassed 20 percent among the 27 provincial-level regions.

The GDP growth of the country was 12.7 percent in the first half of this year, and growth in nine regions surpassed this figure, including Hubei, Hainan, Beijing, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Anhui, Jiangxi, Shandong and Chongqing, with 28.5, 17.5, 13.4, 13.2, 13, 12.9, 12.9, 12.8 and 12.8 percent respective increases.

Hainan's two-year average GDP growth rate ranked first among the 27 provincial-level regions to reach 7 percent. The province's GDP was 288.59 billion yuan in the first half of this year, an increase of 17.5 percent.

With the accelerated construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port, commodity trading, offshore trade and duty-free shopping have maintained a rapid growth trend, also promoting the wholesale and retail industry's swift growth in the province, said ThePaper, citing the Hainan provincial bureau of statistics.

In the first half of this year, Hainan's wholesale and retail industries saw added value surge 55.4 percent to 36.93 billion yuan, contributed 31.1 percent to its economic growth, and boosted GDP growth by 5.4 percentage points.