Gansu
Agricultural production includes cotton, linseed oil, maize, melons (the Bailan melon is well known in China), millet, and wheat. Gansu is known as a source for wild medicinal herbs which are used in Chinese medicine.
However, most of Gansu's economy is based on mining and the extraction of minerals, especially rare earth elements. The province has significant deposits of antimony, chromium, coal, cobalt, copper, fluorite, gypsum, iridium, iron, lead, limestone, mercury, mirabilite, nickel, crude oil, platinum, troilite, tungsten, and zinc, among others. The oil fields at Yumen and Changqing are considered significant.
Industries other than mining include electricity generation, petrochemicals, oil exploration machinery and building materials.
According to some sources, the province is also a center of China's nuclear industry.
Its nominal GDP for 2003 was about 130.5 billion RMB (15.7 billion USD).
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