Local governments across China have adjusted their annual economic growth projections downward in a move aimed at cooling their respective economies, making them more efficient and environmentally friendly.
Signs are that more areas are striving to move away from extensive to more intensive economic growth modes - or qualitative rather than quantitative growth, in response to urging by the central government.
Wang Qishan, mayor of Beijing, announced at the latest session of the
Beijing Municipal People's Congress, the municipal legislature, the city's 2005 economic growth was targeted at 9 per cent, down 4.2 percentage points from the city's real GDP growth last year.
He emphasized that his administration will make greater efforts "to promote economic restructuring, improve urban management and build a balanced society."
His views were echoed by officials in Tianjin, an industrial port city near Beijing, and in Guangdong Province, an economically developed coastal region in the south.
Dai Xianglong, mayor of Tianjin, said in his government's annual report the city had adjusted its economic growth down by 3.7 percentage points to 12 per cent for 2005. Great importance has been attached to the economic performance indicators of the jobless ratio, inflation control and energy consumption per 10,000 yuan (US$1,205) of GDP, as well as environmental protection, said Dai.
Guangdong Governor Huang Huahua, also in his government report, set the province's annual economic growth target at 10 per cent, down 4.2 percentage points from 2004. He said there is still a long way to go before the province realizes an intensive economic growth pattern, as many systematic barriers and an insufficient supply of resources remained.
Those lowering their economic growth projections also included East China's Shandong Province, another economic engine along the nation's coast, and Shenzhen, China's first special economic zone.
Shandong's economic growth target is 5 percentage points lower than the year-earlier level of 15 per cent.Shenzhen's is set at 13 per cent, 4.3 percentage points lower.
Shanghai, the country's largest industrial city and financial hub, will strive for 11 per cent economic growth this year, down from its 13.5 per cent real growth rate of last year.
Zhejiang, an economically developed province in East China, eventually realized more than 1 trillion yuan (US$120 billion) in GDP last year, becoming the fourth local economy in the nation to do so. The provincial government issued China's first province-level white paper analyzing the cost of growth.
It highlights the government's determination to put an end to economic growth at the expense of huge investment, high consumption of resources and heavy pollution.
