GUIYANG — The gross domestic product (GDP) of Southwest China's Guizhou province totaled nearly 907.55 billion yuan (about $140.35 billion) in the first half of this year (H1), a year-on-year increase of 12.1 percent, local authorities said on July 16.

Due to the province's rapid economic recovery in 2020, the GDP growth rate in H1 is 0.6 percentage points lower than the country's growth rate over the same period, according to a press conference held by the Guizhou provincial government on July 16.

In H1, Guizhou's GDP edged up 13.8 percent from that of the same period in 2019.

Despite the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the province's average annual GDP growth for the past two years reached 6.7 percent, 1.4 percentage points higher than that of the country.