China's Jiangsu sees GDP up 3.7% in 2020

NANJING - The GDP of East China's economic powerhouse Jiangsu province grew 3.7 percent year-on-year to reach 10.27 trillion yuan ($1.59 trillion) in 2020, according to local authorities.

Jiangsu is the second province after south China's Guangdong with a GDP surpassing 10 trillion yuan. Guangdong recorded 2.3-percent GDP growth in 2020 to exceed 11 trillion yuan.

In 2021, Jiangsu aims at an economic growth of more than 6 percent, according to a government work report delivered Tuesday at the annual session of the provincial legislature.

The per capita GDP in Jiangsu reached 125,000 yuan ($19,230) last year, ranking first among all provincial-level regions in China. In the next five years, the province will strive to achieve a per capita GDP of more than 150,000 yuan, said Governor Wu Zhenglong, adding that by 2035, the figure is set to double from that of 2020.

The actual use of foreign capital in 2020 in the province reached $28.38 billion, up 8.6 percent year-on-year, while its foreign trade increased by 2.6 percent year-on-year, according to the government work report.

New drivers of development were significantly strengthened in Jiangsu during the past five years. R&D investment accounted for 2.82 percent of the provincial GDP, while the number of high-tech enterprises exceeded 32,000.

The province also saw booming new forms of business. The size of the burgeoning digital economy surpassed 4 trillion yuan, said the report.

So far, four of the 13 cities administered by Jiangsu have reached a GDP of over 1 trillion yuan, among which the city of Suzhou achieved a GDP of over 2 trillion yuan in 2020.