What the Mainland Media Say | Shanghai's shunning of GDP obsession seen as welcome move towards quality growth
Past obsession by governments with GDP figures has fuelled corruption and held back market-driven economic reforms
Government officials have long been obsessed with gross-domestic-product figures, as economic growth is the main yardstick for their performance and, therefore, their prospects for promotion.
But last week, Shanghai took the surprise step of announcing it had ditched its official economic-growth target for 2015, becoming the first provincial-level region to do so after a call from the central leadership to shift focus from the quantity of growth to its quality.
The city's economic target was now simply to "maintain steady growth while introducing structural optimisation and achieving better quality and higher efficiency", Mayor Yang Xiong told the local legislature.
State media generally welcomed the decision. China Central Television trumpeted the development as a "landmark break from the country's obsession with GDP".
The Global Times, a tabloid affiliated to the Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily, said this "is a good sign, as it shows China's coastal region has made significant headway in moving towards a more efficient model that relies less on investment and exports and more on domestic consumption".
China Youth Daily said governments should focus on boosting the quality and effectiveness of economic development and accelerating industrial structural reform.