Profiles of China Provinces, Cities and Industrial Parks

Major Economic Indicators

Notes:  ¹ In real terms  ² For all state-owned enterprises and other forms with annual sales over RMB 5 million
            ³ Jan-Jun 2011
Sources: Yunnan Statistical Yearbook 2011, Yunnan Statistical Bureau, China’s Customs Statistics, 12.2010, 8.2011

General Background

Yunnan has a total area of 394,000 sq.km. Total population stood at 46 million in the 2010, comprising some 26 ethnic groups. The largest minority ethnic group in Yunan is called “Yi”, accounting for about 11% of the total population.

Yunnan has a great variety of landscapes. While Yunnan is a major forest zone in China, whose forest area accounts for more than 9% of the country's total, it is also a mountainous area where sunshine is abundant in some places. Three rivers – Yangtze River, Lanchangjiang and Nujiang Rivers – run through the province and generate exploitable hydroelectricity reserves. Yunnan yields a large number of plant and animal species, which lays the foundation of its Chinese medicine and food industries.

Yunnan shares borders with Vietnam, Laos and Burma, and is connected to Thailand and Cambodia by waterways. Yunnan is positioning itself as a transport hub through which raw materials would be shipped to other inland provinces.

Industries

Most of Yunnan’s light industries are related to processing of farm and natural produces whereas most of its heavy industries are related to processing of raw materials. The weight of heavy industry in the total output value of industry has increased considerably in the past decades due to the high growth rate of the steel industry, electricity industry and the cement industry relative to the light industries such as sugar, cigarettes and paper.

Composition of GDP (%)

Source: Yunnan Statistical Yearbook 2011

Percentage of Gross Industrial Output (%)

Source: Yunnan Statistical Yearbook 2011

Major Industrial outputs in Yunnan are sugar, cigarettes, cloth, steel and steel products, hydropower, raw coal and cement and machine-made paper and paperboards, which all ranked among the top in China. Its outputs of flower, tea leaves, fruits and vegetables are also very famous.

Cigarettes industry is one of the biggest industries in Yunnan, accounting for 15% of the national total output (in volume) in 2010. Yunnan’s tobacco and cigarettes are famous in China— well known brands include “Hongtashan”（紅塔山）, “Ashima”（阿詩瑪）, “Yunyan”（雲烟） and “Hongmei”（紅梅）, which all rank among the best in China. Yuxi（玉溪）is one of the most important tobacco production bases in China and the nation’s largest cigarette manufacturer — Hongta Group（玉溪紅塔烟草集團）is located in this city.

Electricity industry is another important economic pillar of Yunnan, which plays a key role in the “West-East Electricity Transmission Project”（西電東輸）. Yunnan is one of the major production bases of copper, lead, zinc, tin and aluminum in China. Gejiu（個舊）city is well known as "the Kingdom of Zinc" with the reserves ranked first in the country. The Yunxi brand refined tin is one of the main products in Gejiu, which is registered on the London Nonferrous Metal Exchange. Besides, reserves of germanium, indium, zirconium, platinum, rock salt, sylvite, nickel, phosphate, mirabilite, arsenic and blue asbestos are also high.

Yunnan is one of the renowned tourist centers and receives the largest number of tourists in western China. Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Xishuangbanna and Shangri-la are all very famous tourist spots. Yunnan has invested substantially in building the infrastructure for its tourism industry, and it has the largest number of star grade hotels in western China. Tourism also stimulated the development of other services, thus the tertiary sector represented 40% of its GDP.

In 2010, the number of overseas tourist increased by15.7% to3.29million, generating a foreign exchange earning of US$1324 million (+12.9%). The number of overnight domestic tourists reached 76.3 million (+13.5%) with a total revenue of RMB72.0billion (+25.5%).

Foreign Trade

Reliance on foreign trade is not high. Major exports included chemicals and related products, base metals and related products, tobacco, vegetables, fruits and cereals etc. Owing to geographical proximity, ASEAN is the province’s largest trading partner (in particular Myanmar and Vietnam), accounting for over 57% of its exports. In 2010, exports to ASEAN grew by 38.1%. Besides ASEAN, major export markets included India, Hong Kong, Japan, US and Germany.

Major import items included minerals, machinery and electrical appliances, electronics and telecommunications equipment. In 2010, major import sources included ASEAN (in particular Myanmar and Malaysia), Peru, Australia, US and Brazil.

A bottleneck to the development of trade has been transport. Cost of building roads and railways is high due to its mountainous landscape. Nevertheless, the government has been planning the construction of new roads and rails in the coming years.

Foreign investment

Total utilized amount of FDI amounted to US$1,329 million in 2010. The largest amount went to the construction sector in 2010, accounting for 22.2% of the total, followed by manufacturing (19.5%).  Other major areas include wholesale and retail trade and social services.

FDI in Yunnan

Source: Yunnan Statistical Yearbook 2011

Hong Kong is the largest source of foreign investment in Yunnan. In 2010, Hong Kong invested US$ 738.5 million in the province, accounting for 55.6% of Yunnan’s utilized FDI. Hong Kong’s New World Group, for instance, has invested in the development of Chinese medicine, department stores and bus services. Hong Kong’s Baleno, Giordano and Chow Tai Fook have opened retail outlets in Yunnan. Other major foreign investors in 2010 were BVI, Singapore, US and the Philippines.

Consumer Market

The largest consumer center of Yunnan is Kunming, which accounted for 42.4% of the province’s total in 2010. A number of foreign retail enterprises have invested in Kunming’s growing consumer market. These include Wal-mart from the US, Carrefour from France, Price-mart and Trust-mart from Taiwan.

Composition of Per Capita Consumption Expenditure of Urban Household (%)

Source: Yunnan Statistical Yearbook, 2011

Economic Indicators of Major Cities (2010)

Note: *Industrial output value of enterprises with annual revenue over 5 million yuan
Source: Yunnan Statistical Yearbook, 2011