29 out of China’s 31 province-level administrative units have released their GDP figures for the first quarter, with 17 posting growth ahead of the nationwide reading.
The National Bureau of Statistics recently announced that China’s first quarter GDP was 19.8783 trillion yuan, for year-on-year growth of 6.8% at comparable prices.
Local authorities have since followed up with the release of their own economic data, with all but two (Tibet and Jilin) of China’s 31 mainland province-level administrative units releasing their own GDP figures.
17 of China’s provinces posted first quarter GDP expansion ahead of the national reading of 6.8%, with growth led by Guizhou (10.1%), Yunnan (9.3%) and Jiangxi (9.0%), all of which are inland administrative divisions.
The three provinces posting the slowest growth rates were Tianjin (1.9%), Liaoning (5.1%) and Hainan (5.1%). Tianjin’s GDP growth has slowed for the 7th consecutive quarter, with its primary industry and secondary industries dwindling by 1.9% and 1.0% respectively, as compared to tertiary sector growth of 4.4%.
Five provinces posted first quarter GDP’s of more than 1 trillion yuan, with China’s five largest regional economies being Guangdong (2.170529 trillion yuan), Jiangsu (2.10933 trillion yuan) Shandong (1.89006 trillion yuan), Zhejiang and Henan (1.06611 trillion yuan).
Henan province saw its first quarter GDP breach the 1 trillion yuan level for the first time, after posting year-on-year growth of 7.9% for an acceleration of 0.1 percentage points compared to the same period last year.
In addition to being China’s largest regional economy, Guangdong province also saw robust growth of 7.0% in the first quarter, 0.2 percentage points ahead of national GDP growth yet 0.8% percentage points down from its growth in the same period last year.
