Women with shopping bags take selfies along a popular retail street in Beijing, Oct 21, 2017.[Photo/IC]

Of the 27 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions that have released their GDP figures for the first three quarters, 22 saw their GDP numbers exceed the national average growth rate of 6.9 percent, The Beijing News reported.

The southwestern region has maintained a medium and high GDP growth in recent years, with Guizhou province, Chongqing municipality and Tibet autonomous region reporting strong results, the newspaper said. All three have maintained double-digit growth for a long time.

Guizhou and Tibet tied for the first place in the first three quarters, both posting growth rate of 10.1 percent. Southwest municipality Chongqing ranked third with 10 percent.

China's economy continued its firm growth with GDP expanding 6.9 percent year-on-year to 59.33 trillion yuan ($8.96 trillion) in the first three quarters, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Of the 27 provinces that released their GDP data, 22 reported GDP growth over 7 percent. Five regions below the "national line" were Beijing (6.8 percent), Hebei province (6.7 percent), Tianjin (6 percent), Gansu province (3.6 percent) and Liaoning province (2.5 percent).

Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces witnessed their GDP top more than six trillion yuan in the first three quarters, with 6.48 trillion yuan and 6.26 trillion yuan respectively. Zhejiang province saw its GDP number reach 3.69 trillion yuan and took the third spot.

So far, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Shandong, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces have not released their GDP data.