Hebei province's economy grew steadily in the first quarter, with the GDP increasing 9.1 percent and incomes continuing to rise by 10 percent on a year-on-year growth.

The provincial statistics bureau data show a GDP for the first three months of 2013 reaching 55.8 billion yuan, with secondary industries seeing the largest growth.

There has been a restructuring and improvement of secondary industries, so equipment manufacturing saw an increase of 15.9 percent, while added values from new high-technology companies rose 15.1 percent. At the same time, some 12 percent of the province’s companies that have an annual income above 20 million yuan are in this booming technology industry.

Fixed-assets investment grew to 265 billion yuan, an increase of 21.3 percent, with around 80 percent of that from the private sector, both individuals and companies. That increase also reflected an increasingly large consumer market, with sales of staple goods, such as grains, oil, beverages, cigarettes, and alcohol up 17.1 percent, and clothing and textiles up 18.3 percent.

In addition, large commodity spending showed strong growth, with vehicle purchases up 12.1 percent. Much of the strong purchasing power came from increased urban and rural incomes, with cities seeing an income increase of 10.6 percent, to 5,760 yuan per capita, while those in rural areas enjoyed a larger increase, of 13 percent, to 2,741 yuan.