The third session of the 13th Yunnan Provincial People's Congress, the province's legislature, opened on May 10. Governor Ruan Chengfa delivered the government work report on behalf of Yunnan Provincial People's Government, reviewing the work done in the past and laying out the goals for 2020.

Work done in 2019 and at the 2020 outset

Absolute poverty is about to be rid of, with 95% of the poor lifted out of poverty. 95% of the poor villages and 90% of the poor counties in Yunnan were removed from the impoverished list. A total of 1.5 million were resettled, rooting out poverty.

Yunnan’s GDP has amounted to 2.32 trillion yuan (around 327.6 billion US dollars), ranking 18th among the Chinese provinces. 

Economy shows structural changes, featuring eight key industries. Industrial investment increased by 11.7%. Three world-class industries of clean energy, green food and health-life tourism were stressed, with clean-energy use rising to 52.3%. A total of 1,525 green foods were certified with ago-product geographical indications, and tourism revenue totaled over 1.1 trillion yuan. The added value of non-public economy exceeded 1 trillion yuan. 

The digital-Yunnan initiative. Revenue of the information industry increased by 18.3%, and the province issued China's first block chain e-invoice. The Go-Yunnan app and other apps for e-commerce and e-government were developed.

Infrastructural build-up. Over 6,000 kilometers of highways linked up 90 counties in the province. 20,000-km rural roads were widened, with 63 water-source projects launched.

The beautiful-Yunnan policy. Beautiful county-seats were built up, together with distinct tourist towns, beautiful villages and fine highways. The nine major plateau lakes saw improvement in water quality, while prefecture-level cities enjoyed quality air on 98.1% of the days. Soil-erosion control was imposed on 5,516 square kilometers, and forest coverage reached 62.4%. Rural sanitary toilets increased to 82%, and latrine pits are no longer seen in urban areas and first-class scenic sites. 

Improved systems for reform and opening up. Ten major actions were taken to improve the business environment, cutting 135 billion yuan for companies. Government agencies were reformed, and the Yunnan pilot Free Trade Zone was incepted. Investment invite-in increased by 14.6%, foreign trade grew by 17.9%, and the balance of cross-border RMB settlement added up to over 500 billion yuan.

People's well-being was improved. 10 projects were finished to benefit the people. Fiscal expenditure on people's livelihood accounted for 73.2%. A total of 534,000 new urban jobs were created, and the per capita income of urban and rural residents increased by 8.2% and 10.5% respectively. 106 county-level hospitals met the standard on composite capacity. 

Socio-economic order is recovering from the Covid-19 impact. In the first quarter of 2020, the province's major economic indicators dropped less than the national average, with high-tech industries increasing by 23.9%. Online sales grew by 110 % year on year, and financial loans increased by 10.7%. 

Yunnan's goals for 2020

In 2020, the fixed asset investment in Yunnan will grow by over 10 percent, with local budget revenue rising by 2%. The urban unemployment rate will be kept at around 5.5 %, and the CPI is expected to rise by 3.5 %. 

To fully get rid of poverty for a well-off society, Yunnan will have the remaining 442,000 poor population in 9 counties/429 villages reach the criteria to be removed from the impoverished list by the first half of 2020.

More effort in digital-Yunnan initiative. Yunnan will set up another 500,000 kilometers of cable lines, with its broadband linked to the outside at a speed of 33 terabytes. The gigabit broadband will cover over 40% of the key venues, and Yunnan e-government will see synergy.

Building more infrastructure networks. By the end of 2020, the province will have over 9,000-km highways. Efforts will be made to launch the five airport projects in Zhaotong, Mengzi, Yuanyang, Nujiang and Pu 'er. 

Over 400-km gas pipelines will be built up, 20 water-source projects will be completed, and another 50 water projects will be started. Construction of 5 national logistics hubs will see progress.

Further economic restructuring for more openness. Yunnan will implement the 15 plans to build the province into China’s pivot of opening up. The province will pilot more practices to separate business license from certificate, offering one-stop approve for business startups.

By Gateway reporters