China said Feb 28 that more and more of its major economic provinces were as rich as a country, with the gross domestic product (GDP) of Guangdong Province exceeding that of Saudi Arabia, Argentina and South Africa and ranking 16th in the G20. The Global Times, the international edition of People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, said Mar 1 the GDP of some other provinces, including Jiangsu, Shandong and Zhejiang, exceeded that of some G20 countries.
The report is based on a development blue book report released Feb 28 on the competitiveness of Chinese provinces' economy from 2008-2009.
In per capita terms too, the GDP of Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin were reported to rank highly, with Shanghai in 12th place on the G20 list.
The report cited Huang Qunhui, deputy director general of the Bureau of Scientific Research Management at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), as saying that if the process of industrialization was divided into an initial stage, middle period and anaphase, China as a whole has been in the latter period of industrialization's middle period and the next step was how to grow into an industrial power.
But in specific terms, the development stage ranged from Shanghai and Beijing on top in the period of post-industrialization and Tibet at the bottom in the pre-industrial phase.

Source : Tibetan Review