BIUCX↑↓✎From this year on, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will engage in the unified checking of provincial GDP, which means the previous practice of ranking provincial-level GDP levels and growth rates is ready to be halted, Yin Zhongqing, deputy director of the Finance and Economics Committee of the National People's Congress, said at this year's ongoing two sessions.
The reform plan was proposed by the NBS in 2017, and was piloted in Shaanxi, Zhejiang and Hubei Provinces.
Bidding farewell to GDP as the only performance indicator will be a good way to reduce competition among provinces over GDP, The Beijing News commented.
In addition to fostering inappropriate competition, the GDP-based criteria also trigger data fraud, which means the GDP differences between provinces cannot be reflected accurately. Moreover, GDP size or growth rate in each province can no longer objectively reveal local development conditions.
Different provinces have different tasks. For instance, with better economic conditions, provinces focus more on how to protect the environment; others with a relatively backward economy have to use poverty alleviation as a primary performance indicator. Under these circumstances, GDP size or growth rate is not a good indicator.
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