East leads local GDP race

Total GDP of China's top 100 counties is estimated at 8.9 trillion yuan ($1.27 trillion) in 2019, according to rankings of China's top 100 counties released by Beijing-based China Academy of Information and Communications Technology on Nov 13.

By the end of 2018, there were 30 counties (or county-level cities) with a GDP of over 100 billion yuan each, accounting for 5.1 percent of the country's total. Most of such local economies are dominated by the manufacturing sector.

In terms of distribution, the top 100 counties (and county-level cities) are located in 16 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. Among them, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong are leading provinces on the list.

Sun Fuquan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development in Beijing, said the overwhelming dominance of East China's counties reaffirmed the active development of the private sector and high-level of opening-up in the area, especially in county-level economies.