South China's Guangdong Province, one of the country's economic powerhouses, is hoping to register a nine percent rise in gross domestic product (GDP) this year.
Guangdong's economy will keep up its development momentum of the past year, in step with the international situation, said Huang Weihong, head of the Guangdong provincial development planning committee, in a work report delivered at the 10th Guangdong provincial people's congress that opened Monday.
Coupled with another round of infrastructure construction, the private sector will become a new force propelling Guangdong's economic development this year, said Huang.
The province scored a GDP of 1.167 trillion yuan (about US$140.65 billion) in 2002, up 10.8 percent from 2001, or 1.8 percentage points more than the set goal for last year, said Guangdong Governor Lu Ruihua in his work report delivered at the local people's congress.
According to Lu, private savings at banks has climbed to 1.34 trillion yuan (about US$161.07 billion), double the figure for 1997.
Guangdong did 221.39 billion US dollars worth of foreign trade and scored a rise of 24.3 percent in exports, which were recorded at US$118.61 billion last year.
Along with economic growth and foreign trade development, Guangdong kept improving its investment environment. The actual inflow of overseas direct investment into the province in 2002 was US$13.11 billion, up 26.6 percent, said Huang.
(Xinhua News Agency January 15, 2003)
