China’s wealth gap widens as more than half of its provinces missed growth targets last year
- Seventeen of 31 failed to meet their gross domestic product growth rate goals in a year where the national economy expanded its slowest pace in 28 years
- Former growth drivers Chongqing and Guangdong have fallen behind their targets
China’s economic development gap is widening with tougher times looming after more than half of its provinces missed their economic growth targets last year and the effects of the trade war with the US taking a toll on the domestic economy.
Seventeen of 31 Chinese provincial-level divisions failed to meet their gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate goals in a year where the national economy expanded at 6.6 per cent, its slowest pace in 28 years, according to a review of local annual economic reports by the South China Morning Post.
Chongqing, once the nation’s fastest growing region, was its worst performer last year. The 2018 growth rate of the inland manufacturing powerhouse slumped to 6.0 per cent from the previous 9.3 per cent, and was 2.5 percentage points behind the targeted 8.5 per cent set at start of the year.
China’s most prosperous province Guangdong also missed its 7 per cent target. The export base’s economic growth rate slowed by 0.7 percentage point to 6.8 per cent last year.
Similarly, GDP growth of Jiangsu, one of China’s private economy heartlands, weakened to 6.7 per cent, which fell behind its above 7 per cent goal, even as Beijing ratcheted up efforts to support the private sector to buffer the slowdown and mounting jobless fears.
“Chinese provincial-authorities performed worse than expected in meeting their growth targets in 2018,” Guosheng Securities analyst Xiong Yuan said.
“Apart from Shandong province, the real GDP growth rates of the other 30 provinces were on average, 0.3 percentage point lower than their targets.”