In the arena of innovation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' branch in Changchun, Jilin University and other higher-education institutes in the province are the backbone of the province's pursuit of breakthroughs. A number of high-end equipment, such as Jilin No 1 Satellite and high-speed trains, are produced in the province.

A group of four Jilin-1 Earth-observing satellites was successfully launched on Oct 7 last year. As the first high-resolution, remote-sensing commercial satellite made by China, the satellite will be widely used in the monitoring of regional resources, topographic mapping and the construction of smart cities. Regional leaders say the satellite will drive economic growth.

Around the province, the Siping E-commerce Industrial Park was recently approved by central authorities as a national model e-commerce base. Last year, the total value of transactions in Jilin's e-commerce business exceeded 260 billion yuan.

Jilin is a landlocked province and ships goods to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Russia to the east.

Last year, the Changchun-Hunchun intercity railway went into operation, becoming a main transport line connecting the inner region of Northeast China to Russia and the DPRK.

The railway also connects Changchun with Europe via Manzhouli in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and has transported $40 million in cargo since it went into operation more than four months ago.

An airline between Hunchun in eastern Jilin and Pusan in the Republic of Korea also opened last year.

To promote the province for future investment and cooperation, the provincial government successfully held the 10th China-Northeast Asia Expo and invited private and State-owned enterprises from around China to visit Jilin.

Jiang said that opening-up Jilin to economies in the east, south and west will effectively integrate it into the nation's Belt and Road Initiative.

The province is also working to further modernize its agricultural industry. Jilin has some of the most fertile land in the Northeast China Plain, with more than 80 percent of Jilin's farmland cultivated and harvested by large-scale agricultural companies.

Last year, despite a serious drought, Jilin's grain output reached 36.47 billion kilograms, up 3.2 percent year-on-year and ranking fourth among all provincial regions in China. Jilin tops all provinces in terms of grain output per unit area of land.

This year, the government is making more of an effort to promote its rice around the country. The average price of rice from Jilin rose 7 percent year-on-year in 2015 and total revenue for the region's rice farmers reached 1.4 billion yuan.

Jilin provincial government attaches great importance to improve people's livelihoods. Incomes for urban and rural residents rose by 7.5 percent and 8 percent year-on-year in 2015. The provincial government said it reinvested 80.3 percent of its revenue into issues that improve people's lives, up 1.2 percentage points from 2014.

The Party chief, the governor of Jilin and more than 10,000 civil servants visited impoverished regions in eastern and western Jilin in early January to implement a poverty alleviation project by the central government that aims to eradicate national poverty by 2020.  

Top right: China successfully launched a group of four Jilin-1 Earth-observing satellites on Oct 7. The satellites were produced in Jilin province. Above: Jilin is known for its rich ecological resources and for its efforts to preserve the natural environment.

Jilin has some of the most fertile land in the Northeast China Plain.

(China Daily 02/03/2016 page10)