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Jilin leaps major hurdles to post 6.5% growth

By Liu Mingtai and Li Yang | China Daily | Updated: 2016-02-03 08:18

 Jilin leaps major hurdles to post 6.5% growth

The Changchun-Hunchun Intercity Railway went into operation last year, becoming a main transport line connecting the inner region of Northeast China to Russia and the DPRK. Photos Provided to China Daily

Governor says leaders will focus on innovations, rebuilding communities

Jiang Chaoliang, governor of Jilin province, delivered the 2015 government work report at the provincial people's congress on Jan 26 in the capital Changchun.

Provincial leaders have overcome the challenge of securing and developing a balanced economy, featuring emerging industries, agricultural production and opening the province to international trade, according to the report.

"The past year has been an unusual year for Jilin because we faced mounting difficulties from the slowdown in economic growth," Jiang said. "President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Jilin last year boosted our confidence to overcome our difficulties and inspired us to do a better job."

Last year, Jilin's economy grew about 6.5 percent. Jiang said the government aims to keep growth between 6.5 and 7 percent this year.

Jiang said the government will continue to focus on stimulating enterprises to create technological innovations, renovating shantytown communities and spurring infrastructure construction in transportation, water conservancy and energy.

Government revenue reached 122.93 billion yuan ($18.69 billion) last year, up 2.2 percent from 2014. Its goal is to keep revenue growth above 2 percent this year.

In delivering the work report, Jiang pledged to lower energy consumption per unit of GDP by 3.2 percent this year.

Last year, Jilin attracted 683 billion yuan in domestic investment and $8.57 billion in foreign capital, up 16.1 percent and 12 percent from 2014, respectively.

Jilin leaps major hurdles to post 6.5% growth

An industrial base in China from the 1930s, Jilin wants to rejuvenate its aging economic structure. The provincial government insists that it must make good use of its historical industrial heritage and explore new advantages.

Bayinchaolu, Jilin's provincial Party secretary, has stressed that the province has five advantages to develop its economy: its industrial foundation; national grain production base; proximity to the ocean and use of developed waterways; richness in ecological resources; and its strong universities and institutes.

He proposed five basic development philosophies: to be innovative, to strike a balance, to work in a green, environmentally friendly way, to be openminded and to be more sharing.

The concepts will bring marked changes to Jilin's current economic structure, which the report characterized as having slowdowns in the province's conventional industries, such as manufacturing and heavy industries, and growth in emerging industries, services and consumer goods, and in the number of private businesses.

Output value in emerging industries in Jilin reached 351 billion yuan last year, up 10.1 percent year-on-year, while the added value from the service sector reached 534.1 billion yuan, up 8.3 percent year-on-year.

Output value for Jilin's biopharmaceutical and healthcare industries reached 202.92 billion yuan while its equipment manufacturing industries totaled 242.34 billion yuan in output value last year, up 13.5 percent and 11.4 percent year-on-year, respectively.

The proportion of private companies to the overall number of businesses in Jilin currently exceeds more than 50 percent. By the end of last year, the number of self-employed entrepreneurs and private businesses reached 1.36 million and 258,000, respectively, increases of 7.6 and 19.8 percent from 2014. Revenue for self-employed entrepreneurs and private businesses rose 8.8 percent year-on-year last year.

But for a better look at how Jilin's economy has been restructured, the report points to the region's boom in tourism.

Inns in the town of Erdaobaihe at the foot of Changbaishan Mountain in eastern Jilin began accepting reservations for the winter in early October. The winter season, when outdoor temperatures drop to below minus 30 C, is the busiest time for the inns, many of which are run by farmers. Travelers from southern China brought in about 231.4 billion yuan in tourism revenue to Jilin last year, up 25 percent from 2014.

Compared to 2014, last year Jilin province had the nation's fastest growth in tourism revenue for the National Day holiday in the first week of October.

Airports in Jilin handled 86,000 flights and 10.6 million passenger trips over the past year, up 13 and 16.3 percent, the fastest growth figures in Northeast China.

At a time when the growth rates of Jilin's auto and agricultural industries have slowed, the rise of the tourism industry has become a new engine for the province's economy.

Jilin's rich ecological resources and preserved natural environment are the foundations for the robust growth of tourism in the province. Last year, its wetlands increased about 600 square kilometers in total area.

In the arena of innovation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' branch in Changchun, Jilin University and other higher-education institutes in the province are the backbone of the province's pursuit of breakthroughs. A number of high-end equipment, such as Jilin No 1 Satellite and high-speed trains, are produced in the province.

A group of four Jilin-1 Earth-observing satellites was successfully launched on Oct 7 last year. As the first high-resolution, remote-sensing commercial satellite made by China, the satellite will be widely used in the monitoring of regional resources, topographic mapping and the construction of smart cities. Regional leaders say the satellite will drive economic growth.

Around the province, the Siping E-commerce Industrial Park was recently approved by central authorities as a national model e-commerce base. Last year, the total value of transactions in Jilin's e-commerce business exceeded 260 billion yuan.

Jilin is a landlocked province and ships goods to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Russia to the east.

Last year, the Changchun-Hunchun intercity railway went into operation, becoming a main transport line connecting the inner region of Northeast China to Russia and the DPRK.

The railway also connects Changchun with Europe via Manzhouli in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and has transported $40 million in cargo since it went into operation more than four months ago.

An airline between Hunchun in eastern Jilin and Pusan in the Republic of Korea also opened last year.

To promote the province for future investment and cooperation, the provincial government successfully held the 10th China-Northeast Asia Expo and invited private and State-owned enterprises from around China to visit Jilin.

Jiang said that opening-up Jilin to economies in the east, south and west will effectively integrate it into the nation's Belt and Road Initiative.

The province is also working to further modernize its agricultural industry. Jilin has some of the most fertile land in the Northeast China Plain, with more than 80 percent of Jilin's farmland cultivated and harvested by large-scale agricultural companies.

Last year, despite a serious drought, Jilin's grain output reached 36.47 billion kilograms, up 3.2 percent year-on-year and ranking fourth among all provincial regions in China. Jilin tops all provinces in terms of grain output per unit area of land.

This year, the government is making more of an effort to promote its rice around the country. The average price of rice from Jilin rose 7 percent year-on-year in 2015 and total revenue for the region's rice farmers reached 1.4 billion yuan.

Jilin provincial government attaches great importance to improve people's livelihoods. Incomes for urban and rural residents rose by 7.5 percent and 8 percent year-on-year in 2015. The provincial government said it reinvested 80.3 percent of its revenue into issues that improve people's lives, up 1.2 percentage points from 2014.

The Party chief, the governor of Jilin and more than 10,000 civil servants visited impoverished regions in eastern and western Jilin in early January to implement a poverty alleviation project by the central government that aims to eradicate national poverty by 2020.

Contact the writers through liyang@chinadaily.com.cn.

Jilin leaps major hurdles to post 6.5% growth

 Jilin leaps major hurdles to post 6.5% growth

Top right: China successfully launched a group of four Jilin-1 Earth-observing satellites on Oct 7. The satellites were produced in Jilin province. Above: Jilin is known for its rich ecological resources and for its efforts to preserve the natural environment.

 Jilin leaps major hurdles to post 6.5% growth

Jilin has some of the most fertile land in the Northeast China Plain.

(China Daily 02/03/2016 page10)

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