Guangdong province is doing all it can to pursue high-quality development and build itself into a strategic pivot in forming a new development paradigm, said a news conference the Information Office of the Guangdong Provincial People’s Government held in Guangzhou on May 20.

The province’s foreign trade hit 8.27 trillion yuan ($1.22 trillion) last year from 6.3 trillion yuan in 2016, and the amount of its actual use of foreign investment reached 184 billion yuan, up 13.8% year-on-year. The total retail sales of consumer goods surged 9.9%, reaching 4.4 trillion yuan.

Guangdong actively implements digital trade projects and has succeeded in securing national support to build the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into a leader in the digitization of global trade. Furthermore, several cities in the province, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Foshan, Shaoguan, Dongguan, and Zhanjiang, have been earmarked as key cities in the country’s pro-consumption projects.

The province has rolled out a total of 584 tested and tried reform plans in the economy, trade, finance, and governance that can be carried out in other parts of the country, among which 41 are the first of their respective kind in the country.

Guangdong has continuously expanded its opening up to Hong Kong and Macao in finance, law, civil engineering, tourism, and people’s livelihoods.

More than 3,000 professional talents from Hong Kong and Macao now work in Guangdong, partly thanks to the province’s supporting policies and efforts to dock its policies with those of Hong Kong and Macao.