Over the past five years, Jilin province has maintained steady economic growth and enhanced its comprehensive strength sustainably, laying a solid foundation for building an all-round well-off society, according to the province's governor.

When delivering his government work report during the first session of the 13th People's Congress of Jilin at the end of January, Governor Jing Junhai said the province's GDP increased from 1.19 trillion yuan ($187 billion) in 2012 to 1.53 trillion yuan last year.

From 2013-17, total retail sales of consumer goods increased 10.5 percent annually on average, playing an important role in local economic growth. Last year, growth in this sector contributed 60 percent to total economic growth, according to the governor.

The province's total foreign trade volume reached 686.99 billion yuan in the last five years.

Total grain production in the province has exceeded 35 million metric tons for five consecutive years. As the province is developing a modernized agriculture system, production and management in the sector are improving.

"Jilin's growth has also been driven by the implementation of an innovation-driven development strategy in recent years," Jing said.

He added innovative platforms are playing an increasingly important role, citing Changchun New Area as an example.

China's first self-developed high-resolution remote sensing satellite for commercial use, called Jilin-1, was developed by a high-tech institute based in the new area. It was successfully launched in 2015 and to date a total of 10 such satellites are operating in orbit.

During the past five years, Jilin has made efforts to attract domestic and foreign experts, scientists and highly skilled personnel. Together, they have applied for 77,000 patents, with 43,000 receiving authorization.

"Jilin has promoted the development of its pillar industries in the past five years, including automobiles, petrochemicals and agricultural product processing.

"The province has also enhanced its competitive industries, such as equipment manufacturing, tourism, electronic information, pharmaceuticals and other emerging sectors," the governor said.

Jilin is continuing to push forward its reform and opening-up, integrating itself into the Belt and Road Initiative to release new vigor, the governor added.

The province has successfully hosted the China-Northeast Asia Expo three times, as well as the first and second World Jilin Entrepreneurs Convention.

The Jilin government has attached great importance to improving locals' quality of life. It invested 1.3 trillion yuan in more than 200 major social welfare programs in 2013-17. The investment accounted for 80.2 percent of Jilin's total fiscal expenditure.

With the support of the government, urban and rural residents' per capita disposable income increased 7.3 percent on average a year. A total of 2.7 million new jobs were created for local residents in the last five years.

A number of poverty alleviation projects have helped 1.42 million people to rid themselves of poverty. The proportion of impoverished people in the total population in Jilin has fallen to 1.3 percent from 11.3 percent five years ago, according to the governor.

(China Daily 03/06/2018 page10)