Provinces cut GDP growth targets to meet 'new normal'

Provincial-level governments in China have lowered their annual economic growth targets amid the unprecedented slowdown in the national economy.

Shanghai, the nation's largest business center, with a per capita income of more than $10,000 a year, for the first time has even abandoned setting a GDP target.

Shanghai's GDP growth expanded by 7 percent last year.

No provincial-level governments have been reported to have followed Shanghai's example.

Of 28 provincial-level governments that have announced targets, 26 have cut their GDP growth goals by 0.5 to 3 percentage points.

Li Zuojun, a senior member of the State Council Development Research Center, a central government think tank, sees the slashing of GDP targets by provincial planners as part of the local transition to the country's economic "new normal".

According to a statement released after the Central Economic Work Conference, which ended on Dec 11, the "new normal" means a slower growth rate but higher quality, with China striving to keep economic growth and policies steady in 2015.

After a long period of world-record growth, China's economic progress began to moderate last year, with GDP growth of 7.4 percent, the lowest since 1990.

The slowdown is expected to continue this year, with some economists and international organizations forecasting a growth rate ranging from 6.8 to 7 percent.

But Li Daokui, an economics professor at Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, said at a meeting with international journalists on Thursday that he believes China's growth is now close to its low point and may even pick up speed in two years.

Bai Pengming, a macroeconomics researcher at market research company CD Consulting in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, said: "The government should start using some new criterion to measure development."

He cited indexes on the quality of life, on environmental protection and on the spread of new technologies.

Huang Lei, a director of CCID Consulting in Beijing, said bidding farewell to "GDPism" should not mean ignoring GDP and abandoning any economic standard to examine official performance.

Cao Heping, an economics professor at Peking University, said there may be difficulties in the first and second quarters, but growth will probably pick up in the following two quarters.

zhengyangpeng@chinadaily.com.cn