The Guiyang Free Trade Zone – situated in Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province – reported that it had achieved rapid growth in 2021, as it set out its development goals for 2022 at a work conference that took place in the city on Feb 21.
Last year, the zone posted 3.42 billion yuan ($540.79 million) of investment in fixed assets, which increased by 16.3 percent year-on-year.
Industrial investment came in at 1.66 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 134.1 percent; total industrial output value was 1.13 billion yuan, up 79.9 percent and the added value of large-scale industries was 218.55 million yuan, a 36.4 percent gain.
In foreign trade, the value of imports and exports totaled $1.82 billion last year, a year-on-year increase of 51.7 percent. Meanwhile, utilized foreign capital was $130.06 million; paid-up investment of newly introduced industrial projects was 3.02 billion yuan and the general public budget revenue was 159.83 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.7 percent.
In 2021, a raft of key economic metrics ranked first in the city – including the zone's growth rate for the added value of large-scale industries, the completion progress of major projects and key projects, the growth rate of wholesale commodity sales above quota, newly introduced industrial projects and the growth rate of the general public budget revenue.
Elsewhere, the growth rate of fixed asset investment and the completion progress and growth rate of industrial investment ranked second.
In the next five years, plans are for the zone to focus on achieving breakthroughs and practical results – striving to become the province's most distinctive national industrial park and an industrial hub for high-level opening-up.
The zone aims to achieve regional GDP of more than 5 billion yuan during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, with an average annual growth of 22.4 percent. The total value of industrial output is expected to reach 10 billion yuan, total industrial investment is seen at 12 billion yuan, while the average annual growth rate of fixed asset investment is expected to top 10 percent.
In 2022, the zone will push to hit regional GDP topping 2.7 billion yuan. The other targets are for fixed asset investment of 3.5 billion yuan and total industrial output value of 1.2 billion yuan. Total foreign trade is projected to be $2.5 billion – a year-on-year increase of 35 percent – and construction of 800,000 square meters of standard workshops will start.