The Guangdong authorities have rolled out the latest version of their 'Happy Guangdong Index' for public feedback and vowed to make it part of a new system to assess officials' performance.
According to a draft posted on the websites of the provincial government and the provincial Development and Reform Commission yesterday, the system will measure people's happiness based on 17 primary indexes and 84 secondary indexes, all related to social issues. It will be the first such system on the mainland.
Ten primary indexes and 49 secondary indexes will be evaluated using specific figures while the rest will be assessed based on people's subjective experience. Three of those 10 primary indexes will be given a higher weighting: employment and income, social security, and consumption and housing. The two most important secondary indexes will be per capita income in rural and urban areas.
Provincial party secretary Wang Yang first raised the idea of the index system late last year and has pushed hard for the drafting work to progress. Wang, a 55-year-old Politburo member, is widely tipped to be promoted to the Politburo's Standing Committee next year.
Zhu Xiaodan , the deputy governor in charge of formulating the index system, revealed in January that Wang had made 'Happy Guangdong' the province's new focus for the next five years, saying it 'could both follow the central government's instructions and reflect Guangdong's characteristics'.
He said the final version of the index would be publicised in July.
Local economists close to the drafting of the index said early this year that as the richest province on the mainland, Guangdong should be the first to find solutions to tackle social issues such as wage expectations, social security, and health care.