Stable growth reflects industrial upgrade, optimized structure

Jiangxi province's economic growth has maintained its steady upward trend since last year, laying a solid foundation for realizing the region's annual GDP growth target of 8.5 percent.

GDP in the first three quarters reached 1.47 trillion yuan ($222.35 billion), an increase of 9 percent year-on-year when taking inflation into account.

Jiangxi's GDP growth rate for the period was 2.1 percentage points higher than the national economy's, ranking No 4 in the country.

Wan Qingsheng, director of the Statistical Bureau of Jiangxi Province said that since the beginning of this year, economic growth has further stabilized and the region's economic structure has been further optimized and coordinated.

The province's authorities have been focusing on steadily increasing economic development and upgrading the economic structure in recent years, Wan said.

By observing the economic growth rate, employment rate, prices and financial market, it is easy to see that Jiangxi is achieving stable economic development, he said.

The industrial added value of companies above the designed size - meaning companies with more than 20 million yuan in income during the reporting period - increased by 9.1 percent in the first three quarters, 2.4 percentage points higher than the national rate.

Fixed asset investment grew 12.6 percent in the period, 5.1 percentage points higher than the national figure.

The gross value of imports and exports increased by 22.5 percent, 5.9 percentage points higher than national growth.

Jiangxi province had provided 470,000 new jobs in cities and towns by the end of September.

This met the whole-year employment target, with the registered urban unemployment rate at 3.34 percent, 1.16 percentage points lower than the province's target.

The consumer price index rose by 1.8 percent from January to September.

The financial market in Jiangxi province functions well and financial instruments have played a positive role in the economy, local officials said.

The renminbi deposit balance and RMB loan balance in financial institutions in the province achieved 11.7 percent and 19.3 percent year-on-year growth, respectively.

Securing sufficient capital supports the flow of funding to all kinds of public facilities, improving the quality of people's lives, the officials said. Jiangxi has unswervingly promoted supply-side structural reform and has optimized and upgraded its economic structure, taking into account the industrial structure, demand structure and income structure, according to local officials.

The province has focused on achieving rapid growth in strategic emerging industries and high-tech industries, while reducing high energy consumption industry growth.

The added value of strategic emerging industries and high-tech industries in January to September accounted for 15.4 percent and 31.3 percent of the above-scale industrial added value, respectively.

Responding to expanding domestic demand, Jiangxi has made great efforts to adjust and optimize the demand structure in the region, strengthening the driving force of consumer demand to improve people's livelihoods and develop the service industry.

The province's tax revenue increased by 14.2 percent in the first three quarters of the year.

Residents' incomes have also increased. The per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents in the first three quarters increased by 8.7 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

(China Daily 11/10/2017 page18)