Guangdong Province, South China's economic engine, plans to maintain a yearly growth rate of 9 percent for its economy for the next five years, its Governor Huang Huahua said Wednesday.

By 2010, Guangdong's GDP is expected to reach 3,350 billion yuan (416.2 billion U.S. dollars), with a per capita GDP of 34,400 yuan, according to a draft program for its 2006-2010 economic and social development program submitted by Huang to the on-going 4th session of the 10th Guangdong Provincial People's Congress, the local legislature, for deliberation.

The program said that in the next five years, Guangdong will input 418 billion yuan for 63 key projects involved in transport infrastructure, and 233 billion yuan for 21 projects in thermal power, nuclear power and wind power.

The province will also allocate 53 billion yuan to develop 25 key electronics, bio-medicine, software and integrated circuit projects, 248 billion yuan for 13 heavy chemical industry projects, and 31 billion yuan for 11 countryside projects.

Guangdong, which was chosen to pilot the country's reform and opening-up drive in the late 1970s, has benefited the most from the market-oriented campaign.

In the 2001-2005 period, Guangdong's economy grew by 13 percent annually on average and achieved a GDP of 2.17 trillion yuan (264.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2005, up by 12.5 percent on a year-on-year basis, with its foreign trade volume reaching 428 billion U.S. dollars.

The province contributed as much as 11.9 percent to the country's total GDP in 2005, statistics show.

While data from the Guangdong Provincial Statistical Bureau show only 5.1 percent of China's GDP was contributed by the province in 1978, the year when the country started to embrace its reform and opening-up drive, the proportion rose to 9.1 percent in 1992 and 10.8 percent in 2000.

Source: Xinhua