HAIKOU /China/, April 27. /TASS/. The city of Sanya on the south coast of China's Hainan Island saw a 7.5% annualized growth rate in the first quarter of 2023. This was reported by the local statistics bureau.

According to the data, Sanya ranks first among other Hainan provincial cities and counties in terms of growth rate. "There is a positive trend in the city's economic development as a whole," the report said. It notes that improvement has been seen in all key indicators.

The document said Sanya's GRP in January-March reached 25.25 billion yuan ($3.64 billion at current exchange rates). The 7.5% dynamic is "12 percentage points (p.p.) higher than the entire last year" and 0.7 p.p. higher than the province-wide figure for the first quarter.

According to the department's calculations, the growth rate of Sanya's agricultural sector in the three months was 4.7% and that of the service sector was 9.5%.

Tourism, especially the busy season during the nationwide Chinese New Year weekend, was an important boost to the city's economy in January-March. This time the tourist boom was observed not for a week, but for a whole month. As a result, the revenues received by the city thanks to vacationers increased by 44.1% compared to the first quarter of 2022. They were also 1.5 times higher than in January-March 2019, before the pandemic.