By most stats, Chengdu bests peers in west

Chengdu outranked peer cities in western China in most economic indicators in the first quarter, according to the Chengdu Statistics Bureau late May.

In the first three months of the year, the city's total trade volume reached $12.14 billion, up 45.8 percent year-on-year, and the per capita income of farmers grew to 4,571 yuan ($744.6), an increase of 12.2 percent.

Chengdu ranked first in both of those indicators in western China, and its economic aggregate ranked second.

Other economic indicators released by the bureau include fixed-asset investment, total retail sales of consumer goods, tax and fee revenue, and per capita urban disposable income.

Chengdu is also one of the only two cities in the western and central areas of China that made the list of the nation's 20 most competitive cities, according to the 2013 Blue Book of City Competitiveness published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The report measured economic growth and efficiency.

By 2015, Sichuan aims to double its major economic indicators, according to the provincial government. The growth rate of direct investment from outside the province is expected to remain higher than 20 percent.

Authorities have projected that the total volume of foreign trade in goods will break $100 billion in 2015, and trade in services will reach $10 billion, making Sichuan the biggest of all the provinces in western China in terms of interaction with foreign markets.

The city will also support the development of strategic industries like electronic information, automobile manufacturing, oil and gas, and aviation. Other prioritized fields include high-end equipment manufacturing, alternative energy, new material, energy conservation and biopharmaceuticals.

Another focus of the city is fostering a cluster of modern service enterprises in such sectors as logistics, exhibitions and e-commerce.

Chengdu's GDP last year totaled nearly 814 billion yuan ($130 billion).

The city's total trade volume with foreign countries reached $47.54 billion in 2012, up 25.5 percent compared to the year before.

Per capita disposable income rose 13.6 percent to 27,194 yuan, greatly outpacing inflation, which was 3 percent last year, according to official figures.

The gap between rural and urban incomes has also narrowed gradually in the last decade. Rural incomes were at 37.6 percent the level of urban incomes in 2002, and by last year, that figure had risen to 41.5 percent.

Roughly 35 percent of Chengdu's 14 million residents are rural, and their average net income per capita grew by 14.1 percent to 11,301 yuan in 2012.

yangfeiyue@chinadaily.com.cn