Guangdong records better-than-expected growth

Guangdong reported GDP of 2.39 trillion yuan ($356.2 billion) in the first three months of 2019, said the Bureau of Statistics of Guangdong province on Monday.

This figure represents year-on-year growth of 6.6 percent, 0.1 percent higher than expected.

The tertiary sector from January to March grew by 7.2 percent compared with last year, reaching 1.36 trillion yuan.

This growth plays a significant role stabilizing economic development in the province, said the bureau in a statement.

Meanwhile Guangdong, one of the country's economic powerhouses, reached 1.02 trillion yuan in sales of consumer goods between January and March, a year-on-year increase of 6.9 percent, 0.5 percentage points higher than the figure reached in the year's first two months.

Guangdong's fixed asset investment grew 11.2 percent year-on-year while investment in infrastructure enjoyed considerable growth of 28.3 percent in the first three months, contributing to the sustainable growth of the province's overall economy.

The province's foreign however trade recorded a slight reduction, due to, it is said, Sino-US trade conflicts in the first quarter of the year.

Guangdong, the country's largest foreign trader, recorded an import and export volume of 1.55 trillion yuan from January to March, a year-on-year reduction of 1 percent.

The province sold 926.02 billion yuan worth of products abroad in the first quarter, up 1.8 percent on 2018. Guangdong's import volume came to 662.12 billion yuan, a year-on-year reduction of 4.8 percent.

Guangdong's per-capita average income of local residents was 10,814 yuan in the first quarter, up 8.5 percent compared with 2018.

Urban residents' average income came to 13,266 yuan, up 8.2 percent year-on-year, while rural farmers' per-capita average income hit 5,415 yuan, up 8.7 percent.