Foreign trade in China's Guangdong up $100b
Afp, Beijing
Foreign trade in southern China's industrial powerhouse Guangdong province topped 500 billion dollars in 2006, up 100 billion dollars over the previous year, state press said Sunday. Exports of high and new technologies led the boom, making up 34.5 percent of the province's total exports during the first 11 months of the year, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the provincial trade bureau. Private export-oriented businesses also helped boost foreign trade as they increased their exports by 58 percent during the first 11 months of 2006 over the previous year, exporting 42 billion dollars worth of goods, it said. According to the Ministry of Commerce, China's total foreign trade is expected to top 1.75 trillion dollars in 2006, up about 24 percent over 2005. In the first 10 months of 2006, Guangdong, known as the shop floor of China's booming export-driven economy, exported 241 billion dollars worth of goods, up 28 percent over the same period in 2005. The province imported 183 billion dollars of products during the first 10 months of 2006, up 19.8 percent over the same period in 2005, ministry statistics showed. According to Xinhua, foreign enterprises brought some 14 billion dollars in contracted investment into Guangdong during the first 11 months of 2006. Guangdong's GDP is expected to reach 2.58 trillion yuan (330.7 billion US) this year, up 14 percent from last year, according to provincial government predictions, the report said. Per capita gross domestic product in Guangdong's provincial capital, Guangzhou city, was likely to surpass 10,000 dollars in 2006, the first major Chinese city to break that mark, state media reported on Thursday last week. Gross domestic product for the city of seven million in China's manufacturing hub should reach 623.6 billion yuan (about 80 billion dollars) for 2006, up 14.4 percent from 2005, according to a city government report. The 10,000-dollar figure is a widely recognized threshold between developing and developed countries. "The breakthrough in GDP per capita indicates that Guangzhou has become China's first developed city by World Bank standards," state press quoted Peng Peng, a researcher with the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, as saying.
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