In 2014, the economic development of Guangdong province saw a new leap: the per capita GDP made a breakthrough of USD10, 000, stepping over the world average level for the first time, with overall economic and social development reaching the standard of moderately developed countries of the world.

Data released by the Office for Statistics of Guangdong on January 22 indicated that in 2014 Guangdong saw a total local GDP of RMB 6.78 trillion, up 7.8% year-on-year, with a per capita GDP of RMB 63, 452, equal to USD10, 330 on basis of average exchange rate. It was for the first time that the per capital GDP of Guangdong exceeded USD 10, 000.

From a national perspective, Guangdong became another province (municipality, autonomous region) of China with per capita GDP exceeding USD 10, 000 following Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

“Under the New Normal status for economic development, the new achievement of Guangdong has the following distinctive characteristics compared with that of other provinces (municipalities, autonomous regions): first, the service sector made a substantial contribution to the GDP growth; second, the innovation-driven and technology-based sectors also made greater contributions; third, a good trend is being shown for the shrinking of differences between difference regions,” said Liu Zhibiao, professor at Nanjing University.

From a global perspective, currently Guangdong ranks the 65^th worldwide in terms of per capital GDP. It is predicted that it will for the first time step over the world average level (the average per capita GDP of various countries in the world in 2014 is predicted to be USD 10, 300).

However, the overall development cannot cover up the imbalance of the local development. The per capita GDP at the Pearl River Delta region exceeded USD 10,000 in 2010, while the per capita GDP of the eastern, western and northern Guangdong are still lower than the national average level. For this, the decision makers of Guangdong proposed to accelerate the development of the eastern, western and northern Guangdong at the same time of optimizing the development at the Pearl River Delta region.

On the other hand, the proportion of the tertiary industry of Guangdong exceeded that of the secondary industry; the urbanization rate reached 68%; the average life expectancy is about 77 years……Xing Xiaowei, director general of the Office for Statistics of Guangdong, said that a series of indicators showed that, based on related standards for industrialization stages, Guangdong is at a stage for transformation from the “middle period of industrialization” to the “later period of industrialization” and has begun to step into a new stage featuring informationization-driven industrialization, internationalization-promoted marketization, urbanization serving as carriers, accelerated economic and social transformation, construction of a moderately prosperous society in an all-around way and realization of basic modernization.

Source: Nanfang Daily, January 23, 2015