It is reported that Heilongjiang province in northeast China flourished as a center of heavy industry more than half a century ago. It would later become the nation rust belt with aging, unproductive factories, inefficient management and high levels of unemployment.

Since 2002 the province has maintained double digit growth for eight consecutive years. In 2009, its GDP reached CNY 828.8 billion growing 11.1% over the previous year, some 2.4 percentage points higher than the national average. This year it continued to show strong growth of 12.8% in the first quarter.

According to the provincial statistics bureau, Heilongjiang GDP in the first three months reached CNY 186 billion the best first quarter performance since 1992 when quarterly GDP figures were first released publicly. The figure is CNY 30.3 billion higher than the first quarter of 2008 and 1.2 percentage points more than the previous record set in the first three months of 2007.

The major contributor to record quarterly performance was the manufacturing industry which increased output by 13% to CNY 87.55 billion. Manufacturing operations not only grew, but were also more efficient, registering pretax profits of CNY 45.95 billion an unexpected growth of 98.2% over the first quarter of 2009.

The province four pillar industries equipment production, petrochemicals, energy and food processing continue to be the engines driving the province's economy. Combined business revenues of the four sectors reached CNY 171.47 billion an increase of 43.3%YoY. Their total net profits were CNY 21.89 billion up by 109.9%.

The Heilongjiang Committee of Industry and Information Technology the province industrial regulator said the upward growth will be further consolidated in the second quarter as a result of the nation continuing stimulus policies and the province own initiatives.

The committee further predicted that the industrial output value of the manufacturing sector for the whole year would increase by CNY 445 billion, 14.6% more than last year.

According to information released by the committee the province own stimulus initiatives include support to emerging industries such as new materials, energy conservation and environmental technologies, biologics and information.

(Sourced from China Daily)