(Yicai Global) May 23 -- The economy of China's southwestern Yunnan province expanded at a brisk 9.7 percent clip in the first quarter, ranking it first among 31 provinces and cities.

This stellar performance came courtesy of the province's investment, exports and consumption, according to reports on regional first-quarter gross domestic product that the National Bureau of Statistics released to the press today.

Yunnan's GDP reached CNY385 billion (USD55.7 billion) in the three months through March. Its fixed asset investment grew 11.4 percent, or 5.1 percentage points higher than the nation's overall, while consumer goods sales gained 11.1 percent, or 2.8 points more than the national figure. The province's foreign trade rose 13.4 percent. That's 9.7 percentage points ahead of the rest of the country.

China's first-quarter GDP was CNY21.3 trillion (USD3.08 trillion), an increase of 6.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the bureau.

Guangdong remains the province with the largest economy in China. Its GDP hit CNY2.4 trillion in the first quarter, per the bureau's reports. The other two provinces with GDP over CNY2 trillion were Jiangsu and Shandong, with CNY2.3 trillion and CNY2.0 trillion, respectively.

Seventeen regions had higher GDP growth rates than the national average. Guizhou, the Tibet Autonomous Region, Jiangxi, Fujian and Hubei were in the front row at above 8 percent, while Jilin, Tianjin, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Heilongjiang straggled, coming in with the slowest growth. Jilin, in northeastern China, climbed just 2.4 percent.

Editor: Ben Armour