Xinhua Silk Road: Kunming steadily promotes construction of regional int'l center

BEIJING, Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Kunming, capital city of southwest China's Yunnan Province, has steadily built itself into a regional international center thanks to rapid economic and social development over the past 70 years.

Kunming has continuously deepened its opening-up, actively serving the Belt and Road construction. The city has established trade relations with 203 countries and regions, and attracted 98 of the World Top 500 companies to invest. In 2018, the total export value of the city reached 13.12 billion U.S. dollars.

From 1952 to 2018, Kunming's GDP increased from 156 million yuan to 520.6 billion yuan, an increase of 543 times, and the per capita GDP exceeded 10,000 U.S. dollars. The general budgetary revenue of the city increased from 366 million yuan in 1978 to 59.563 billion yuan in 2018, an increase of 162.7 times. The city's industrial structure has gradually been optimized, with the contribution to GDP by the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries adjusted from 39:34:27 in 1952 to 4.3:38.4:57.3 in 2018.

As for urbanization, the urban area of Kunming has expanded from 7.8 square kilometers in 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded, to 416 square kilometers at present, showing an increase of 52.3 times. Now, urban residents represent 72.9 percent of permanent residents in the city, while the figure was only 29.5 percent in 1978.

In terms of transportation, the urban bus network coverage rate of Kunming has reached 79 percent, ranking second among cities in China. The urban rail mileage of the city is 88.76 kilometers and the expressway mileage is 766 kilometers. With Kunming Changshui International Airport going into operation in 2012, the transportation hub function of the city is further enhanced.

Known as the "Spring City", Kunming has firmly promoted the concept of green development and paid high attention to ecological civilization. In 2018, the city's forest coverage rate reached 49.57 percent, and the per capita public green area was three times that of 1952. The water quality in the Dianchi Lake, once one of the most polluted lakes in China, rose to grade IV in 2018, the best in the recent 30 years.

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