People visit the Potala Palace square in Lhasa, Southwest China's Xizang autonomous region, Feb 11, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Xizang autonomous region witnessed steady economic growth in the first half, with its gross domestic product hitting 118 billion yuan ($16 billion), up 6.1 percent year-on-year, said the regional bureau of statistics on Tuesday.

"The growth rates of key economic indicators in Xizang — per capita disposable income of urban residents, fixed-asset investment, and import and export volume — all ranked tops in the country in the first half," said Wang Ping, deputy head of the region's bureau of statistics, at a news conference on the first-half economic performance of the region, which was held last week.

"In the first half, Xizang continuously strengthened its project guarantee system, accelerated the cultivation of distinctive advantageous industries and continuously optimized the business environment," said Wang.

Official statistics reflect that in the first six months, the added value of the region's primary sector surpassed 6.21 billion yuan, up 16.7 percent year-on-year, and that of the secondary sector rose 13 percent to over 46.8 billion yuan.

The added value of the region's tertiary sector grew 1.8 percent to 65.89 billion yuan.

In the January-June period, the agricultural economy in Xizang maintained rapid growth, with the total output value of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries reaching over 8.46 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.6 percent.

The industrial production of enterprises above a designated size continued to accelerate, with added value increasing 19.7 percent year-on-year. The added value of manufacturing increased 8.6 percent.

The combined proportion of hydropower and solar power generation in the industrial electricity generation among enterprises above a designated size was 97.3 percent, and services sector firms above a designated size grew steadily, with transportation, warehousing and postal services growing by 22.4 percent from January to May, driving a 5.4 percentage point increase for services enterprises above a designated size.

Meanwhile, the region reported a total import and export value of 3.8 billion yuan in the first half, a year-on-year increase of 132.4 percent. Among the total, exports reached 3.21 billion yuan, marking a 122 percent year-on-year increase. Meanwhile, imports were 590 million yuan, up 202 percent year-on-year.

Wang said that during the first half, market demand has continued to expand and fixed-asset investment achieved rapid growth, with the region's fixed-asset investment surging 25.7 percent year-on-year, private investment growing 49.7 percent, and investment in high-tech industries increasing 33.6 percent.

"During the period, in terms of project scale, large projects provided strong support for economic growth in the region, with 464 projects having construction value above 100 million yuan, an increase of 106 projects compared with the same period last year," said Wang.

He also said that completed investment grew 40.8 percent during the period, driving an increase of 21.1 percentage points in total investment.

"In the first half, the economy of Xizang continued to improve, production supply accelerated continuously, market demand kept warming up and factor support continued to strengthen."