Visitors crowd around a light work during Guangzhou International Light Festival on Nov. 22, 2016, in Guangzhou, one of Guangdong's first-tier cities. (Photo : Getty Images)
Among 31 provinces and municipalities in mainland China, Guangdong Province in South China is the largest and fastest-growing economy in terms of GDP, which was driven by government efforts to stabilize the economy and the rising housing prices.
The Global Times cited data released on Sunday, Jan. 22, by the Statistics Bureau of Guangdong Province that showed that the province's economy jumped by 7.5 percent year-on-year to 7.95 trillion yuan ($1.16 trillion) last year.
Guangdong's economic growth also remained faster than the national average of 6.7 percent, although it slowed down from 8 percent in the previous year.
The provincial government said in its website that this is the 28th consecutive year that its GDP volume was hailed as the largest in the country.
According to the website article, if Guangdong can be considered a country, its economy would have been the 16th largest in the world.
The article also noted that Guangdong was also the first province or municipality in the country to earn more than 1 trillion yuan in general revenue, an expansion of 10.3 percent year-on-year in 2016.
Xing Xiaowei, director of the Guangdong statistics bureau, was quoted as saying that the province did not only maintain its "overall stable" economic growth in 2016 but it has also opened new opportunities for growth.
Xing said that the driving forces behind the growth of Guangdong's economy may be attributed to improved economic structure, innovation and consumption.
"Under the new normal, the transformation of Guangdong's economic structure and the change in economic driving forces has picked up pace," the official added.
Government data showed that the total sales of consumer goods in the province surpassed more than 3.5 trillion yuan, up 10.2 percent year-on-year. Its services sectors also posted rapid growth as profits earned by major services firms rose 21.7 percent year-on-year.
Xing said that the efforts to stabilize growth and implement structural reforms have driven the economic growth last year.
Ding Li, a regional economy expert at the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, said that being open and market-oriented has made it easy for Guangdong to adopt to changes and maintain stability.
"Cutting outdated capacity, while adding effective supply is a key part of the structural reform, and the market can decide better than any other forces," Ding told the Global Times. "Guangdong has better experience in this area."
Meanwhile, Liu Xuezhi, a macroeconomist with the Bank of Communications, said that Guangdong's real estate sector has a big contribution to its growth. The province has two first-tier cities--Guangzhou and Shenzhen--which have some of the highest-priced housing in the country.
Official data showed that commercial housing sales hit more than 1.6 trillion yuan, up 41.7 percent on year-on-year basis, while real estate investment climbed by 20.7 percent last year.
Xi said the province is set to implement measures to prevent real estate overheating.
