China’s provinces lower growth targets after central government takes over task of compiling GDP figures

Revision follows move to address long-standing problem of combined provincial total exceeding national figure

So far two thirds of local growth targets have been cut amid a renewed focus on ‘high-quality’ growth

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China’s provincial gross domestic product figures will now be compiled centrally. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 5:30pm, 19 Jan 2020Updated: 3:17pm, 17 Feb 2020

More than two thirds of China’s provinces have lowered their 2020 growth targets after the central government said it would start compiling provincial gross domestic product totals.

The move comes as the leadership’s focus moves towards “high-quality growth” and addressing technological and demographic challenges

China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said it would start to calculate provincial gross domestic product (GDP) figures starting this year to avoid over-reporting by local officials.

This led to a long-standing anomaly where the combined provincial GDP total in China was significantly larger than the national figure.

So far, 21 out of the country’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions have announced they will cut their growth targets following their respective People’s Congress meetings, where local development blueprints are finalised.

The municipal authorities in the capital Beijing lowered their target from 6 per cent, down from last year’s recorded growth of 6.2 per cent. Meanwhile, Guangdong, the province with the largest economy at 10.5 trillion yuan (US$1.5 trillion), also issued a 6 per cent target, down from last year’s 6.3 per cent growth rate.

Some fast growing regions also slowed their planned pace of expansion. For instance, the southwestern province of Guizhou, which has attracted extensive investment in recent years, has an 8 per cent growth target after growing by 9 per cent last year.