Beijing trails Shanghai coming second, with Guangdong in third, in terms of provincial
economic competitiveness according to the newly released A
Report of Overall Competitiveness of China's Provincial Economy
2006-2007.
?
The report was jointly put together and published by Management
World magazine belonging to the State Council's Development
Research Center, Fujian Normal University and the Social Science
Academic Press. Its findings relied on a detailed evaluating system
across three categories, namely eight B indexes, 22 C indexes and
184 D indexes.
Beijing ruled the roost on most B indexes, being among the best
provinces or municipalities in terms of macro economy, industrial
economy, finance, knowledge economy, sustainable development,
development environment, governance and development level. Of
particular pride to China's capital must be its first place on the
knowledge economy index and coming second on industrial economy and
finance.
However, Beijing's performance slipped on the governance index,
ranking a lowly eleventh in China. Although the capital's
government succeeded in narrowing the consumption gap between urban
and rural areas, implementing standardized taxation and in bringing
population growth to heel, the report highlighted Beijing's
incompetence in several areas. Indexes where Beijing performed
badly include fiscal expenditure on infrastructure investment,
bolstering GDP growth and social investment while also falling
short in terms of the impetus to transition from governmental
consumption to civil consumption.?
According to the report, the improvement of provincial economic
competitiveness requires a cooperative effort from
industrialization, urbanization and marketing sectors of society.
As the three major indicators of economic modernization, these
driving forces must evolve in an interdependent, mutually
beneficial and easy manner.? However, their respective
developments are not balanced in most Chinese provinces. Beijing
highlights this problem since the development of these three forces
either top or bring up the rear of national rankings.
The report made further suggestions that Beijing aim to boost
service consumption for tourism, culture, sports and entertainment.
It also encouraged the capital to toe the line on the
Olympic-driven Strategy in modernizing industry, improving
ecological construction, building a reliable financial risk warning
and refund system while also renewing its commitment to innovating
government administration methods.?
(Beijing Evening News, translated by Li Shen for
China.org.cn, March 15, 2007)