China's economy takes off running in 2023

Since the beginning of the New Year, local authorities have made solid efforts to balance economic and social development, and epidemic prevention and control, bringing fresh and sustainable momentum to China's economy, which has set a steady course for a new journey.

Skyscrapers border a lush green landscape in Shenzhen's central business district. (Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn)

Guangdong province

A high-profile provincial conference on high-quality development was held in Guangzhou on Jan 28, the first working day after the Spring Festival holiday.

High-quality development is an inevitable path Guangdong is on while heading toward modernization, Huang Kunming, Party secretary of Guangdong, said at the conference.

A series of major projects in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan and other cities also kicked off. In Shenzhen, a total of 266 new projects for 2023 were launched on Jan 29, with a total investment of 329.53 billion yuan.

To implement the spirit of high-quality development across the province, Guangdong entrepreneurs strive to be the front-runner in the field of high-quality development and are committed to transforming Guangdong's high-quality plan into a reality.

Guangdong's GDP was estimated at 12.8 trillion yuan in 2022, and the province has set a GDP growth target of more than 5 percent for 2023, according to provincial government data.

Hainan province

South China's island province of Hainan has launched plenty of promotional activities, further stimulating the vitality of duty-free consumption.

Statistics from Haikou Customs showed that it has supervised a total of 5.19 billion yuan in duty-free sales, from a total of 534,000 consumers when they left the island from Jan 1 to 28.

During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Hainan reported a total of 1.56 billion yuan ($234 million) in offshore duty-free sales, a year-on-year increase of 5.88 percent.

The province also received nearly 6.4 million tourists during the seven-day holiday, up 18.2 percent year-on-year, and raked in nearly 9.3 billion yuan in tourism revenue, according to the provincial tourism authority.

Hainan will focus on boosting consumer demand and strive to drive up the island's number of tourists and tourism revenue this year. It expects to see its offshore duty-free sales exceed 80 billion yuan in 2023, said Feng Fei, governor of Hainan, when delivering a government work report in early January.