Governor of Guangdong Province, Huang Huahua, yesterday vowed that the province, where SARS exploded twice, would try to respond more quickly when fighting epidemics.

The province will do more this year to improve its public health system's capacity.

It would aim to achieve a much quicker response and introduce more effective preventive measures, Huang said at the annual provincial People's Congress.

Huang said work to establish an epidemic information network and research severe epidemic diseases would continue this year.

At the congress, the province's legislature, Huang proposed a gross domestic product (GDP) growth target of 9 per cent.

Huang announced the GDP growth rate for the province reached 13.6 per cent last year, the highest since 1996. At the beginning of last year, the seemingly cautious provincial government also set its target at 9 per cent.

However, government officials said a range of uncertainties had been taken into account when the growth rate was set.

Factors that could affect the economy this year include fluctuations in exchange rates of major hard currencies such as the US dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen and the spread of bird flu, said Li Huiwu, deputy director of the development and research centre under the Guangdong provincial government.

He said the GDP results in 2003 were the fruits of years of the industrial restructuring and upgrades.

"The positive results of the industrial restructuring and upgrades helped the economy perform better last year," he added. Li is also one of the key members compiling governor Huang's working report.

(China Daily February 11, 2004)