Northwest China's Shaanxi Province has seen rapid economic growth over the past 10 years with impressive achievements in innovation-driven development, the provincial governor told news media on Thursday.
According to Governor Zhao Gang of Shaanxi Province at a press conference in Beijing, the gross domestic product (GDP) of Shaanxi has grown at an average annual rate of 6.4 percent in the past 10 years, and it reached 3.38 trillion yuan (some 497.06 billion U.S. dollars) last year.
Over the past decade, the provincial authorities have intensified efforts to harness the province's strength in science, research, culture and education, with innovation emerging as an increasingly dominant force and significantly bolstering the province's economic development.
"Shaanxi has given rise to three national-level industrial clusters in the aviation industry, integrated circuits, and advanced structural materials. The province's conversion efficiency of photovoltaic cells has renewed world records multiple times. We've benchmarked technologies in the fields of superconductivity, Ultra-High Voltage (UHV) power transmission, and new displays meeting advanced global standards. We've led the country in the modern coal chemical industry, high-end drones, metal additive manufacturing, and dry farming and water-saving agriculture. Additionally, the province's scale of the titanium processing industry and its output of transmissions for heavy-duty trucks have both ranked the first in the world," he said.
The provincial capital city of Xi'an has become the only Chinese city with air routes to all the five Central Asian countries, according to Zhao.
What's more, Shaanxi Province has made substantial strides in improving its ecological environment over the past 10 years, evidenced by the vast acreage of the Shaanxi section of the Qinling Mountains and the good water quality in the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the world's largest water transfer project, according to the provincial governor.
Shaanxi is the Chinese mainland's 15th largest economy, ranking within the middle tier among China's administrative divisions. The fossil fuel and high technology sectors compose the two largest industries in Shaanxi Province. The high technology sector includes aircraft and aerospace industries and Shaanxi produces more than 50 percent of the research and development and manufacturing equipment for the country's domestic commercial aviation industry.
GDP of Shaanxi grows at annual rate of 6.4 pct in 10 years: governor
