Northeast China boasts the "comparative advantages and
conditions" for the country's fourth biggest regional economy only
after the Pearl river delta, the Yangtze river delta and areas
around the Bohai sea, a senior economic official said
Tuesday.
Song Xiaowu, deputy director of the State Council's
office of northeast China revitalization, said the region "has
begun to recover," at a press conference for the first blue-paper
book on the development of northeast China.
He cited the region's increases of economic output,
overall investment, foreign capital and residents' income, which
all surpassed the national average in recent years.
Urban residents in northeast China, covering the
provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, enjoyed a 38 percent
surge on year in 2005 income, creating favorable conditions for
consumer spending, while materialized foreign investment soared
87.7 percent to US$6.26 billion last year.
Bao Zhendong, president of the Liaoning Academy of
Social Sciences, agreed, saying "the growth in northeast China is
on track to accelerate."
Northeast China's per capita gross domestic product,
however, made up only one third of that of the Pearl river delta in
south China in 2004, government figures show.
Song said the key to the northeast China success lies
in turning an old rustbelt into a state-of-the-art and liberalized
industrial base.
The region now accounts for 40 percent of China's
crude oil output, half of its timber production and a quarter of
the country's auto output, and analysts agree it serves as a window
for China's opening to northeast Asia.
(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2006)
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