"Development in Yunnan province has gained momentum in the past years, with its economic aggregate ranking among Chinese provinces going up to the 20th in 2018 from the 24th in 2012," said Chen Hao, secretary of the CPC Yunnan Provincial Committee, on August 12.

Yunnan’s economic volume amounted to nearly 1.8 trillion yuan in 2018, and its total revenue in local public finance reached more than 370 billion yuan, Chen told a press conference held in Beijing this morning. These figures are 205 times and 1,988 times higher than those in 1952.

From 2013 to 2018, 7.07 million villagers in 48 poverty-stricken counties in the province were raised out of poverty, with poverty rate falling from 21.7% to 5.39% in the same period. Yunnan aims to lift all the poor out of poverty by 2020.

In its effort to be a regional powerhouse, Yunnan established 11 bilateral cooperative mechanisms with the neighboring countries and built up 18 economic cooperation zones in the border areas near Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and others. 

The China-South Asia Expo has been a success for years, and cross-border RMB settlements by Yunnan banks have covered more than 90 countries and regions. Since 2015, improved business environment in the province has drawn in a total investment of 3.8 trillion yuan.

To be a pacesetter in eco-conservation, the province has increased its forest coverage from 50.03% to 60.3% in the past years of 2012 to 2018. Water quality of the major lakes in Yunnan has seen marked improvement.