China’s economic headache: setting targets for quality development

As Beijing aims for quality growth, it makes sense to dilute or even ditch GDP targets, but this is difficult in practice

Central planners also need to prune the burgeoning list of goals for local governments and grapple with the difficulty of imposing quantitative targets while emphasising quality

Yuen Yuen Ang

+ FOLLOW

Published: 9:15am, 8 Apr, 2021

Updated: 9:15am, 8 Apr, 2021

Why you can trust SCMP

Illustration: Craig Stephens

READ FULL ARTICLE

Yuen Yuen Ang

+ FOLLOW

Yuen Yuen Ang is the author of How China Escaped the Poverty Trap and China's Gilded Age. She is a professor of political science and a China scholar at the University of Michigan, with a PhD from Stanford University.

China’s economic headache: setting targets for quality development

As Beijing aims for quality growth, it makes sense to dilute or even ditch GDP targets, but this is difficult in practice Central planners also need to prune the burgeoning list of goals for local governments and grapple with the difficulty of imposing quantitative targets while emphasising quality