East China's coastal province of Shandong reported strong GDP growth in the first quarter of 2021 as its economy recovered from the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic.
The GDP of the economic powerhouse grew 18 percent year on year to nearly 1.81 trillion yuan (about 278 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-March period, Yu Chenghe, deputy secretary-general of the Shandong provincial government, told a press briefing on Wednesday.
The figure edged up 11.1 percent from that of the first quarter of 2019 prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, with average year-on-year growth of 5.4 percent over the past two years.
Shandong's foreign trade totaled 617.7 billion yuan in the three-month period, surging 38.9 percent year on year, Yu said. Exports rose 45.4 percent year on year to 343.7 billion yuan while imports jumped 31.6 percent to 274 billion yuan.
With year-on-year trade growth of 40.8 percent, privately-owned businesses contributed to 68 percent of the total trade volume, 0.9 percentage points higher than a year ago.
Shandong's trade with the Belt and Road countries grew 34.3 percent year on year to 194.4 billion yuan, accounting for 31.5 percent of the province's total in the first quarter. Enditem
