East China's Shandong province saw its GDP reach 7.65 trillion yuan (about $1.13 trillion) in 2018, a year-on-year growth of 6.4 percent, according to a news conference convened by the Shandong provincial government on Jan 29.

Shandong took the third spot in amounts of provincial GDP, following South China's Guangdong province in first place with 9.73 trillion yuan and East China's Jiangsu province second with 9.26 trillion yuan.

Last year, Shandong made significant progress in promoting the shift of old growth drivers to new ones, in reform and opening up development as well as in urban and rural area construction.

Wei Huaxiang, the provincial government's press secretary, detailed the economic data across all sectors as well as the significant achievements the government has made.

Last year, value added in the primary industry rose 2.6 percent to 495 billion yuan and that in the secondary industry reached 3364 billion yuan, up 5.1 percent.

Value added in the tertiary industry grew 8.3 percent to 3787.7 billion yuan. The tertiary industry was also the largest contributor to the province's GDP last year, accounting for about 49.5 percent of the total.

Shandong has yielded years of good harvests and its food production capacity was improved last year. It saw a total grain output of 50 billion kg in 2018, accounting for about eight percent of the country's total.

Benefiting from supply-side reform, the added value of industries above a designated size (those with annual sales of more than 5 million yuan, or $744,371) increased by 5.2 percent, while the production and sales ratio remained above 98.6 percent.

The service sector accounted for 1.5 percentage points more than the previous year, contributing 60 percent to the economic growth.

The province's general public budget revenue reached 648.54 billion yuan, an increase of 6.3 percent over the previous year. Tax revenue alone rose by 10.8 percent, accounting for 75.5 percent of fiscal revenue.

Total revenue from foreign trade hit a record high, increasing 7.7 percent year on year to 1.93 trillion yuan. 

Shandong's exports totaled 1.06 trillion yuan last year, the first time the province has crossed the 1 trillion yuan mark. Imports stood at 873 billion yuan. Both exports and imports hit record highs.

A news conference is convened by the Shandong provincial government on Jan 29 to introduce the province's economic conditions in 2018. [Photo/dzwww.com]

A container ship docks at a port in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province, on Jan 9. [Photo by Yu Fangping/for China Daily]