East China's Zhejiang province, which is home to 65 million permanent residents, saw its gross domestic product (GDP) grow 8.1 percent year-on-year to 7.35 trillion yuan ($1.16 trillion) in 2021, according to the provincial government work report delivered on Jan 17 at the annual session of the Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress.

In terms of GDP, Zhejiang is now on par with Indonesia, the largest Southeast Asian country that has a population of 262 million.

In 2020, Zhejiang's GDP stood at $936.8 billion, outperforming the Netherlands ($910 billion in GDP, 17 million in population) for the first time. Indonesia's GDP was $1.06 trillion that year (ranked 16th in the world).

According to the province's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) released in February 2021, Zhejiang has set an ambitious goal of achieving a GDP of 8.5 trillion yuan by 2025, on par with South Korea, a developed nation with roughly the same population and land area.

In 1996, the per capita GDP in Zhejiang was $1,100, while that of South Korea was $10,000. In 2020, Zhejiang's per capita GDP of $14,600 was almost a half of South Korea's ($31,500).