Guangdong's gross domestic product rose 14.1 percent year-on-year to hit 2.34 trillion yuan (US$299 billion) during the first eleven months of this year.

Huang Huahua, governor of South China's Guangdong Province, gestures at a press conference in Guangzhou, capital of the province, December 18, 2006. [chinadaily.com.cn]

The average yearly GDP growth rate in the province from 1979 to 2005 is 13.7 percent. The year 1979 marks the time when China began to adopt the policy of reform and opening up to the outside world. Guangdong's GDP growth rate is 4.1 percentage points higher than the national average and over four times that of the international average, Huang said at a press conference.

Guangdong's GDP reached 223.66 trillion yuan (US$273 billion) last year, surpassing Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Singapore, previously two of the strongest economies in Asia. The figure also represents US$65.50 less than that of Taiwan, whose GDP stood at US$323.4 billion last year.

"It will take about three years for Guangdong to catch up with or surpass Taiwan in terms of GDP," said Huang.

Gungdong's GDP grows by more than US$30 billion a year, while Taiwan's grows by US$10 billion a year, Li Huiwu, deputy director of the provincial government's development research center, said last week.

The governor admitted there are existing problems which have caused great concern about the province's development in the past such as unbalanced economic development between cities and rural areas, the fact that social development has lagged behind economic development and environmental pollution.

Huang promised that the provincial administration will speed up its efforts to turn Guangdong, dubbed as "the factory of the world", into a people-oriented, environmentally friendly and harmonious province in the 11th Five-Year-Plan period (2006-10).

Guangdong raised up to 113.3 billion yuan in fixed assets investment in rural areas in the province during the first ten months of this year, up 39.5 percent year-on-year and 29.7 percentage points higher than in urban areas, he said.

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