As China struggles to arrest its alarming economic slowdown, why are Guangdong and Chongqing bucking the trend?

Guangdong and Chongqing (重慶) were the mainland’s beacons of economic growth last year, bucking the trend of the nationwide slowdown.

The strong performances by China’s biggest provincial economy Guangdong, led by party secretary Hu Chunhua, and its largest municipality, under Sun Zhengcai, came at a critical time as Beijing struggles to arrest a deepening slowdown in the national economy.

Diverging local economic performances not only test Beijing’s ability to coordinate policies to revive the national economy, but also influence the political jockeying ahead of the next Communist Party leadership reshuffle in less than two years.

The central government has set a growth target of 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent for 2016 – the first time it has targeted a range since 1995. Growth slowed to 6.9 per cent last year, the lowest in a quarter of a century.

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Guangdong, with an economy larger than that of Indonesia or Turkey, grew 8 per cent last year, accelerating from 7.8 per cent in 2014, while Chongqing, on the upper reaches of the Yangtze, achieved 11 per cent, the highest of the 31 provinces, regions and major cities on the mainland.