The financial sector gets into gear in Baotou in the first three months of the year. [Photo/Baotou news network]

Baotou city – located in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – experienced a sound performance in its financial sector in the first quarter, with its added value coming in at 3.11 billion yuan ($467 million), a year-on-year increase of 3.4 percent, according to local media reports.

At the end of the period, the balance of various renminbi deposits was 372.92 billion yuan, an increase of 748 million yuan on the start of the year and up 8.19 percent compared with Q1 last year.

The balance of various loans was 278.3 billion yuan in end-March, a gain of 8.29 billion yuan on the year-start, representing a year-on-year increase of 9.94 percent.

The insurance industry in the city realized Q1 original insurance premium income of 2.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.04 percent.

Baotou city's economic development enjoyed robust growth in the first three months of the current year, with GDP standing at 87.02 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of 8 percent.

The growth rate was 3.2 percentage points higher than the national level and 2.2 percentage points higher than that of the autonomous region, ranking Baotou first among the 12 leagues and cities in Inner Mongolia.

Baotou has confirmed that 902 major projects are going ahead in 2022 and as of April 15, construction work on 875 major projects had started or resumed.