Leveraging advantages, inland areas grab competition from big industries.

Their total profits stood at 8.4 trillion yuan in this period, down 4 percent from a year earlier, the NBS data revealed.

Exports surged by 28 percent to 1.06 trillion yuan, while imports were recorded at 950 billion yuan, an increase of 14.2 percent.

Gwede Mantashe admits constraints at mining indaba, says state is working on solutions

Northeast China's Heilongjiang province saw its foreign trade in goods grow by 33 percent year-on-year to 265.15 billion yuan ($39.44 billion) in 2022, customs data showed.

The daily crude steel output stood at 1.93 million tonnes in early January, according to the China Iron and Steel Association.

Power consumption data can reflect situations of enterprises' production and economic operation, and thus become a key barometer of economic activity, experts said.

Last year, Shanxi provided 620 million tonnes of thermal coal for another 24 provincial-level regions in China, according to the provincial statistics bureau.