13 regions beat national GDP growth rate

Of the 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions that have released their GDP figures for the first three quarters, 13 saw their GDP numbers exceed the national average growth rate, ThePaper reported.

South China's Hainan province registered a 9.5 percent growth－the highest among these regions, followed by Inner Mongolia autonomous region (7.2 percent), Gansu province (6.6 percent) and Sichuan province (6.5 percent).

Northeast China's Liaoning province saw its GDP growth stand at 5.3 percent in the first nine months. This also marks the first time in ten years that the province's GDP growth exceeded the "national line" during the same period.

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, China's GDP grew by 5.2 percent to 91.3 trillion yuan ($12.5 trillion) in the January-September period after a 5.5 percent growth in the first half.

In terms of economic aggregate, South China's Guangdong province recorded 9.62 trillion yuan in its GDP and took the top spot. The GDP of Shandong and Zhejiang provinces reached 6.81 trillion yuan and 5.92 trillion yuan, ranking second and third, respectively.

The first three quarters' performances have laid a solid foundation for meeting the annual growth target of around 5 percent, Sheng Laiyun, deputy head of the NBS, said earlier at a news conference, adding that, in order to achieve the annual growth target, growth should be more than 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter.