South China's Guangdong province reported steady economic growth in the first eight months of this year, with total GDP growing at 12.8 percent year-on-year.

During the period, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) amounted to805.6 billion yuan (97 billion US dollars). The growth rate was the highest in the past eight years, according to government sources.

The industrial added value rose by 20.5 percent to reach 339 billion yuan (40.8 billion US dollars). Meanwhile, there were alsosignificant increases in exports and imports, which reported 91.66billion US dollars and 81.18 billion US dollars respectively.

Contracted foreign investment was 15.7 billion US dollars, up 30.1 percent from last year.

Analysts said the statistics prove that the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) had not had much impact on local economic development.

From January to August, investment in fixed assets rose to 260 billion yuan (31 billion US dollars), up 29.4 percent from last year.

Millions of dollars were put into the iron and steel industry, refineries and automobile manufacturing, due to strong consumer demand. 

Editor: Wing