Economy
Jiangsu has the highest GDP per capita of all Chinese provinces.
The province has an extensive irrigation system supporting its agriculture, which is based primarily on rice and wheat, followed by maize and sorghum. Main cash crops include cotton, soybeans, peanuts, rape, sesame, ambary hemp, and tea. Other products include peppermint, spearmint, bamboo, medicinal herbs, apples, pears, peaches, loquats, ginkgo. Silkworms also form an important part of Jiangsu's agriculture, with the Lake Taihu region to the south a major base of silk production in China. Jiangsu is also an important producer of freshwater fish and other aquatic products.
Jiangsu has coal, petroleum, and natural gas deposits, but its most significant mineral products are non-metal minerals such as halite (rock salt), sulfur, phosphorus, and marble. The salt mines of Huaiyin have more than 0.4 trillion tonnes of deposits, one of the greatest collections of deposits in China.
Jiangsu is historically oriented towards light industries such as textiles and food industry. Since 1949, Jiangsu has also developed heavy industries such as chemical industry and construction materials. Jiangsu's important industries include machinery, electronic, chemicals, and automobile. Recently the government has worked hard to promote the solar industry and hopes by 2012 the solar industry will be worth 100 Billion RMB. The economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping have greatly benefited southern cities, especially Suzhou and Wuxi, which outstrip the provincial capital Nanjing in total output. In the eastern outskirts of Suzhou, Singapore has built the Suzhou Industrial Park, a flagship of Sino-Singaporean cooperation and the only industrial park in China that is in its entirety the investment of one single foreign country.
Jiangsu is very wealthy among the provinces of China, with the second highest total GDP, after Guangdong Province. Its GDP per capita was 44,232 yuan in 2009, but a wealth gap between the prosperous south and poorer north has led to unequal economic growth. Cities like Nanjing, Suzhou and Wuxi have GDP per capita around twice the provincial average, making south Jiangsu one of the most prosperous regions in China.
In 2011, Jiangsu's nominal GDP was 4.80 trillion yuan (US$759 billion), making it the second largest GDP of all the provinces and an annual growth rate of 12.4%. Its per capita GDP was 52,448 yuan (US$7,945). In 2009, the share of GDP of Jiangsu's primary, secondary, and tertiary industries were 6.4%, 54.1%, and 39.5% respectively.
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