The third session of the 13th people's congress of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region kick off on Sunday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region saw a 6 percent increase in gross domestic product despite a complex environment in 2019, according to the government work report from the region delivered at the opening of the third session of the 13th Guangxi Zhuang People's Congress on Sunday.

Chen Wu, chairman of the region, said in the past year Guangxi achieved a lot in its economy by promoting opening-up. 120 pilot projects of the Guangxi pilot free trade zone were approved by the State Council and 55 have already been put into construction. 132 new financial provisions to attract ASEAN countries' financial agenciess has been carried out successfully and 57 foreign banks and insurance company are ready to set branches in the region.

China-ASEAN Information Harbor, an integrated digital platform of the region, has launched 29 projects including the E-government Cloud Computing Center, the China ASEAN Smart City Collaborative Innovation Center. High-tech companies like Huawei, Tencent and Inspur Group were attracted to set up a base in Guangxi .

Guangxi will further its opening up to tap economic growth in 2020, the governor said.

According to Chen, Guangxi will build the FTZ to a world-class standard and try to cultivate replicable experiences.

The government will accelerate the construction of the international Land-sea trade corridor. Container throughput of the Beibu Gulf harbors will have a target of 5 million. On the land, connectivity will open more than 150 shuttle buses to Vietnam.

The region will go all out to develop a processing industry in the border area, try to attract 100 more processing factories and cultivate 10 more trade markets and 10 processing industry zones, the governor said.