Beijing, China, 23 Feb – The Chinese province of Guangdong, in the south of the country, expects a 9 percent increase in its gross domestic product (GDP) in the 2006-2010 period, a slowdown compared with recent rates of 13 percent per year, Officials said.

The projection, made public Wednesday in Beijing by the province’s governor, Huang Huahua, at the opening session of the Popular Provincial Congress, would be the first time since the end of the 1970s that Guangdong’s GDP has expanded by less than 10 percent.

Guangdong accounts for around a tenth of the Chinese economy and its GDP in 2005 totaled US$268 billion.

Specialists have said that the change in development rate is natural due to the province’s move from a labor-intensive economy to one based on technology and capital.

Investment is set to slowdown this year, from a 16.3 percent growth rate in 2005 to an estimated 15 percent and import growth and retail sales are also expected to slow.

Governor Huang also said that the province would cooperate even more with the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

Huang said that the bridge linking Zhuhai, Macau and Hong Kong, which will be 40 kilometers long, will begin to be built at the beginning of 2007 and finished in 2015. (macauhub)