Guangdong Province, an economic powerhouse in southern China, witnessed a slower decline of external trade, a rally in industrial production and a steady growth in investment against the current global downturn in the first four months of this year.

The provincial statistical bureau said on Saturday that in April, Guangdong's foreign trade value was 47.14 billion U.S. dollars, a decline of 18.1 percent from the same month of last year. But the value was 5.2 percent above the March level.

The accumulative trade value was down 21.7 percent year on year, but the decline rate was 1.4 percentage points below the January-March level.

In April, the province actually used 1.64 billion U.S. dollars in foreign direct investment, up 7.2 percent year on year. The growth, the third since February, was 1.2 percentage points higher than the March level. FDI actually used amounted to 5.36 billion U.S. dollars for the first four months, up 2.9 percent on the same period of last year.

Between January and April, Guangdong invested 286.87 billion yuan (42.1 billion U.S. dollars) in fixed assets, a growth of 13.7 percent year on year. The growth rate was one percentage point above the January-March level.

Guangdong's major industrial enterprises, which saw a big decline in the fourth quarter of last year, realized 117.2 billion yuan in output value in April, up 3.5 percent year on year or 6.8 percent month on month. The industrial output value was up 2.1 percent year on year in the first four months, and the growth rate was 1.2 percentage points higher than the January-March level.

Consumption, another important indicator of the provincial economy, remained robust.

In April, Guangdong's retail sales stood at 112.94 billion yuan, up 14.9 percent on the same month of last year. In the first four months of this year, 16.23 million square meters of commercial housing were sold in the province, up 40.8 percent year-on-year.