(Yicai Global) Dec. 27 -- Guangdong province, China's largest regional economy, was he biggest spender on research and development last year as southern regions made up an even larger proportion of the national economy, according to official data.

The region beat out 30 other provincial-level economies with a CNY270.5 billion (USD38.6 billion) bill for its R&D expenditure in 2018, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show. Jiangsu followed with CNY250.4 billion and Beijing with CNY187 billion, while Shandong, Zhejiang and Shanghai also spent over CNY100 billion.

Growth in southern regions has been much faster than the north in recent years, with island province Hainan spending over seven times more last year than it did in 2008 -- the fastest among all regions. Seven other southern provincial-level economies filled out the top 10 in terms of growth, while the five slowest were in northern China. Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin, all in the northeast, were the three slowest.

Economic growth in the south has outpaced that of the north since 2013, said Du Ying, former deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission. The south made up 61.5 percent of the Chinese economy last year, widening the gap with the north to 23 percentage points from 14.8 points in 2017, he added.

Editor: James Boynton