South China's Guangdong Province is expected to achieve economic growth of 9 percent this year, higher than the target of 8.5 percent, governor Huang Huahua said Thursday.

The worst time was over and this year's economic situation was better than expected, Huang told Xinhua.

Guangdong's economy in the first quarter expanded 5.8 percent from a year earlier, lower than the 6.1 percent nationwide, as the global financial crisis took a heavy toll on China's "factory of the world."

The growth rate accelerated to 8.6 percent in the year to September, 0.9 percentage points higher than the national average rate.

Huang said the economy picked up with massive government spending and measures to help exporters and small and medium-sized businesses to ride out the economic crisis.

This year, the province would invest 330 billion yuan (48.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 10 projects that cost a total of 2.3 trillion yuan.

Guangdong's export decline narrowed to 16.8 percent year on year in the first 10 months, compared to a 20.5-percent slump for nationwide.