The regional gross domestic product of the city of Maoming rose from 243.97 billion yuan ($37.71 billion) in 2015 to 327.93 billion yuan in 2020, an average annual increase of 5.3 percent, according to the eighth session of the 12th Maoming Municipal People's Congress, which kicked off on Feb 6.

Maoming's total fiscal revenue increased from 47.45 billion yuan in 2015 to 54.52 billion yuan in 2020, giving it an annual growth rate of 2.8 percent. The city's general public budget revenue increased by 4.6 percent annually, reaching 14.27 billion yuan by the end of 2020 from 11.39 billion yuan in 2015.

The eighth session of the 12th Maoming Municipal People's Congress kicks off on Feb 6. [Photo/WeChat account: maofabu]

Maoming attracted a number of key projects during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), including Oriental Energy's alkane resources comprehensive utilization project, the largest private industrial project that Maoming has ever introduced. Binhai New Area is building itself into a world-class green chemical and hydrogen energy industrial base centered on the project.

The world's largest - and the nation's first - slurry bed residue hydrogenation unit, with a capacity of 2.6 million metric tons per year, was put into use in Maoming in December 2020.

Maoming had 221 qualified construction enterprises by the end of 2020, which is 1.71 times the number it had in 2015. Dianbai district won the title of "China's construction hometown", the first of its kind in Guangdong province.

A total of 355.6 billion yuan was invested in 353 key infrastructure projects, and 54.7 billion yuan in transportation, 105 percent more than during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) period. The expressway mileage in the city increased from 200 kilometers in 2015 to 360 km in 2020.

It had developed 144 leading agricultural enterprises at or above city level by 2020, and built 22 provincial-level agricultural towns and 91 provincial agricultural villages. The number of market entities in Maoming exceeded 300,000 by 2020, a 69 percent increase from 2016.

The city has invested 59.85 billion yuan in education over the last five years, becoming an advanced city in terms of promoting the modernization of education in Guangdong province.

It was also rated a "national sanitary city" by the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee (NPHCC) in January.