Of the 27 provincial-level regions that recently published their gross domestic product growth figures for the first three quarters of this year, 22 registered a higher growth than the country's average, with Guizhou province and the Tibet autonomous region ranking first.

Guizhou has actually maintained its strong economic momentum since 2011, with its GDP growing by 10.7 percent in 2015 and 11.73 percent in 2017.

How has the southwestern province, a region geographically located in China's less-developed inland region, which was known for its relatively weak economic foundation and backward infrastructure, managed to pick up its development steam?

Guizhou has accelerated the construction of its high-speed rail and highway networks in recent years and the establishing of well-developed transport links to the economically developed Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas and Southeast Asian countries has laid a solid foundation for its economic development.

The accelerated economic structural adjustments Guizhou has advanced with the support of the central government have been the reason for its economic takeoff. The energetic development of big data as a key industry, and the application of big data, along with strengthened supply-side reforms in such traditional sectors as coal, electricity, tobacco and wine, have also injected fresh impetus into the province's economic development.

Guizhou's marvelous economic performance has also benefited from its transformed development approach. Its "ecology-friendly" growth model, the transformation and upgrading of its energy industry, its strengthened economic openness and economic cooperation with other regions, and the active measures it has taken to integrate itself to the country's Belt and Road Initiative have all helped to boost its development

Guizhou has also taken numerous targeted poverty relief measures that have successfully raised more than 7 million people out of poverty over the past five years.

(China Daily 11/10/2017 page8)