Southwest China's Guizhou Province has ranked first in the country for two reasons. First, it has lifted the most people out of extreme poverty in the country. Second, it has led China's digital economy for five consecutive years. CGTN reporter Ma Ke sat down with Guizhou's Vice Governor Li Zaiyong to find out how the inland province is punching well above its weight. 

CGTN: The 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP) will set out a blueprint for China's economic development for the next five years. How do you picture Guizhou Province in five years?

Li: Our first goal is to take economic development to a new level, which is to organize the overall situation with a high-quality development concept. Under the premise of ensuring quality, we'll maintain the rapid growth in the 12th and 13th FYPs. The target is that our growth rate should not be lower than the national average and that we will create another golden decade of high-quality development.

The second goal is to take a new step in the construction of an ecological civilization. We will maintain the good air quality of county-level above 95 percent and at the same time ensure that the green economy accounts for more than 50 percent of our total economic output.

Thirdly, we must take living standards to a new level. Our development must be based on the people, meet people's needs for a better life and comprehensively consider development factors such as basic public services, employment and social environment.

The fourth goal is that we must strive to open up. We must actively strengthen international cooperation, continue to go out, participate in the Belt and Road Initiative and build Guizhou into a transportation hub in the southwest region, radiating and attracting development elements.

The final goal is to take a new step toward social civilization. Through the comprehensive building of the rule of law in Guizhou and the establishment of socialist core values, we are to promote Guizhou's red culture, ecological culture and national culture.

CGTN: Five years ago, Guizhou was still home to the largest impoverished population in China. Now it has the largest number of people lifted out of poverty. So, what's the secret behind Guizhou success? What's the work for the next phase?

Li: Before the 18th National Congress, Guizhou was one of the provinces with the largest number of poor people and the deepest poverty level in the country. At that time, we had 9.23 million impoverished people. Among our 88 counties, 66 were deeply impoverished. At the same time, we still have more than 1.9 million people living in rocky mountains, deep mountainous areas and alpine regions. The environment they lived in could not support their daily necessities. After several years of hard work, we have now eradicated extreme poverty in all these 66 poverty-stricken counties. All 9.23 million poor people were lifted out of poverty. Nearly 2 million of them were moved to the counties and cities.

We've creatively developed 12 characteristic industries in agriculture, 10 new industries in manufacturing and 10 projects in the service industry, providing new jobs and opportunities. We also creatively promoted the flow and training of talents across the province.

CGTN: So how did the improvement of infrastructure help Guizhou get new opportunities in its economic development? What's the next phase's work?

Li: Guizhou is the only province in the country that is not supported by plains. Our mountainous areas account for 92.5 percent of the province's land. For a long time, especially before the 18th National People's Congress, due to the inconvenience of transportation, the outside world did not know much about us and we didn't know much about the outside world either. Things can't come in and our products can't get out.

Through nearly 10 years of development, our highway mileage has reached more than 7,600 kilometers and the high-speed railway mileage has reached over 1,500 kilometers. The total passenger throughput of civil aviation exceeded 30 million trips.

Such a combination of railway, highway, and aviation systems has actually formed a high-speed, fast-developing runway for Guizhou. At the same time, it has also strengthened Guizhou's confidence in development.

CGTN: Guizhou's digital economy growth rate has ranked first in China for five consecutive years. How do you think Guizhou should keep the momentum？

Li: We'll promote digital industrialization and industrial digitization and strive to take the lead in five major areas.

First, we must take the lead in the convergence of data. We must further improve the construction of our data aggregation database, develop big data centers, and gather all these elements to provide the basis for the use, search and reorganization of data.

Second, we must take the lead in the deep integration between big data and the real economy. We will promote the integration of tens of thousands of enterprises and empower smart agriculture, smart industry and smart service industries through digitalization, and restructure our industrial value chain.

Third, we need to take the lead in digital governance.

The fourth target is to take the lead in digital infrastructure. We must further increase and improve the construction of 5G, blockchain, industrial internet and Internet of Things. It is necessary to develop, innovate and integrate network infrastructure.

The fifth target is to take the lead in the international cooperation of the digital economy. We must continue to organize a platform like the Big Data Expo. We must improve the ability to calculate and apply data in cooperation with other nations under the Belt and Road Initiative. You might know that the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) system is settled in Guizhou. From this year on, we'll open up the FAST system for cooperation with the international community and promote digital Guizhou to the world.

CGTN: How do you think an inland province can get involved in national strategies for opening up?

Li: There are many restrictive factors for opening up, but with the development of expressway, high-speed rail and aviation, we've realized a leap forward in development.

Therefore, many multinational and export-oriented enterprises are putting their headquarters in Guizhou. Last year, Guizhou's export volume, although not too large, grew fastest in the country.

In the next step, we'll improve our channels of opening up. On the one hand, we need to use traditional roads, railways and shipping channels to open up to other provinces, cities and other countries. On the other hand, we will form a high-speed big data channel. We are now building a big data center in China's western regions for the Belt and Road Initiative. And we're preparing to build an international big data center for the digital economy and ecological civilization.

The second target is that we must continue to build international platforms that are open to the outside world. Let experts and scholars all over the world exchange ideas and values on such platforms and let Guizhou become an open place for value exchange.