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There's a danger in going for GDP growth
By Jiang Xufeng |
August 14, 2009, Friday
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SOME local officials set too great a store on gross domestic product (GDP) growth figures, which could lead to unreliable reporting of data, says Xu Guangjian, a professor at Beijing-based Renmin University of China.
Xu, vice president of the university's School of Public Administration, was commenting this week on the divergence between China's national and local-level GDP growth figures for the first half of the year.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on July 16 the country's GDP grew 7.1 percent year on year in the first half to 13.99 trillion yuan (US$2.05 trillion).
However, the aggregate GDP figure of the latest data at provincial level nationwide was 1.4 trillion yuan more, or about 10 percent higher. China had set an overall goal of 8 percent GDP growth for the whole year.
Yang Yongshan, former chief statistician of Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Statistics, said it was possible that the national and local aggregate figures were not in accordance, but it was not reasonable local figures were higher than the national ones.
The national GDP figure was not "a simple adding-up." Some local officials paid more attention to GDP growth rate partly because the figure was crucial to their performance assessment and consequent promotion.
Cai Zhizhou, an economist at Peking University, said people in developed economies cared more about data on their social well-being such as employment and the consumer price index (CPI).
"In assessing local officials' performance, we should not lay too much stress on GDP growth rate, we should rather care for areas related to social well-being, including improving the employment rate," Cai said.
The registered unemployment rate in Chinese urban areas reached 4.3 percent at the end of June. This was unchanged from the end of March, but slightly up from the 4.2 percent at the end of 2008.
"If local governments only pay attention to GDP growth rate, they put energy and resources into projects to create its best growth effect. This is not conducive to long-term economic restructuring and improving the government's public services," Xu said.
Experts say stress on recording high GDP growth locally was like trying to make a cake bigger, but it did not mean the cake was more tasty.
(The author is a senior writer at the Xinhua news agency.)
Xu, vice president of the university's School of Public Administration, was commenting this week on the divergence between China's national and local-level GDP growth figures for the first half of the year.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on July 16 the country's GDP grew 7.1 percent year on year in the first half to 13.99 trillion yuan (US$2.05 trillion).
However, the aggregate GDP figure of the latest data at provincial level nationwide was 1.4 trillion yuan more, or about 10 percent higher. China had set an overall goal of 8 percent GDP growth for the whole year.
Yang Yongshan, former chief statistician of Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Statistics, said it was possible that the national and local aggregate figures were not in accordance, but it was not reasonable local figures were higher than the national ones.
The national GDP figure was not "a simple adding-up." Some local officials paid more attention to GDP growth rate partly because the figure was crucial to their performance assessment and consequent promotion.
Cai Zhizhou, an economist at Peking University, said people in developed economies cared more about data on their social well-being such as employment and the consumer price index (CPI).
"In assessing local officials' performance, we should not lay too much stress on GDP growth rate, we should rather care for areas related to social well-being, including improving the employment rate," Cai said.
The registered unemployment rate in Chinese urban areas reached 4.3 percent at the end of June. This was unchanged from the end of March, but slightly up from the 4.2 percent at the end of 2008.
"If local governments only pay attention to GDP growth rate, they put energy and resources into projects to create its best growth effect. This is not conducive to long-term economic restructuring and improving the government's public services," Xu said.
Experts say stress on recording high GDP growth locally was like trying to make a cake bigger, but it did not mean the cake was more tasty.
(The author is a senior writer at the Xinhua news agency.)
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