The 12th Guizhou provincial People's Conference opened its 4th session, on Jan 26 in the city of Guiyang, the provincial capital, chinanews.com has reported, quoting the provincial deputy Party secretary, Sun Zhigang, as saying, "Guizhou will speed up construction work on an open economy pilot project during the 13th Five-year Plan (2016-2020)."

12th Guizhou provincial People's Conference in Guiyang on Jan 26. [Photo by He Junyi/ chinanews.com]

During the last Five-year Plan, Guizhou was able to open up more, with the Guizhou Commerce Bureau reporting exports and imports for 2015 worth $13-billion, putting it in?second place among all provinces and 20-percent increase over 2014. It also got $2.5-billion worth of foreign capital, up 22-percent from 2014.

But, an open economy has never been one of the province's strong points since it has no sea coast or border with another country, so it wants to use China's "Belt and Road" plan, the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Zhujiang-Xijiang Economic Belt to help its economy. It will also use its opening-up sites – the Gui'an New Area, Guiyang National High-tech Industrial Development Area, Guiyang National Economic and Technology Area, Zunyi National Economic and Technology Area, Guiyang Free Trade Zone, Gui'an Free Trade Zone, Zunyi Free Trade Zone, and Guizhou Shuanglong Airport Economic Zone – to help and has already seen some progress.

It also plans to increase trade and economic cooperation with Switzerland, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and will encourage foreign investment to come while encouraging its companies to go global.