The author Mo Kaiwei is a well-known Financial Writer in China
As of January 26, 27 of the country's 31 provinces have held the "two sessions", and many provincial and local governments have discussed hot issues such as GDP, smog, and household registration reform, of which 16 provinces have lowered their GDP growth targets on the basis of 2015 (Beijing News, January 2).
For the 16 provinces to lower the GDP growth target, all sectors of society can not help but feel surprised and disappointed, and should praise and celebrate it. Because these provinces that lower the GDP growth target are not losing confidence in local economic development, let alone the manifestation of powerless economic downward pressure at home and abroad; but the return of rational economic development concepts forced by the reality of economic development, it is also a good beginning for China's economy to continue to move towards ecological and sustainable development.
As we all know, after more than 30 years of rapid development of the "golden age", until today due to the weak world economy and large environmental impact, China's economy has entered an era of serious overcapacity, economic capacity, deleveraging pressure is greater, especially the serious consumption of resources, serious environmental damage, to the sustainable development of the economy to create a lot of obstacles and resistance, all of which require the central government and local governments at all levels in the economic development of a 180 degree turn, That is, from the past GDP-only economic development mode at the expense of resources and the environment to the pursuit of resource-environment friendly and quality-effective economic growth mode, this transformation requires the courage and courage of governments at all levels, and the firm determination of the brave to break the wrists of heroes. Today, the 16 provinces have reduced their GDP growth rate not only to adapt to the development and changes in the economic environment, but also to promote the practical need of economic supply-side reform. If local governments still fail to recognize the current severe situation of economic development and the sense of danger and urgency in the protection of environmental resources, the economic problems accumulated in China over the past few decades will be difficult to return, the optimization of the economic structure will become a luxury, and the improvement of the people's living happiness index will become a bubble.
Obviously, the level of GDP growth target has become the vane of China's economic growth quality, directly determining the economic governance behavior of governments at all levels; the lowering of the GDP growth target shows the fundamental change in the economic concept of local government governance in China, understanding that economic development is a history of tortuous wave evolution, and now reducing GDP growth rate is "to retreat into advance" so that the economy can develop better in the future. Judging from the 16 provinces lowering the GDP growth target indicators, it highlights four major characteristics and advantages: First, regardless of economic development areas or economically backward areas, except for a few provinces and cities such as Chongqing, the GDP growth target of most provinces has been reduced to single digits, showing that governments at all levels have changed from one-sided pursuit of total GDP to the pursuit of GDP quality, laying a solid ideological foundation for the economy to get rid of the extensive model and develop in the direction of intensification.
Second, whether it is an economically developed area or an economically backward area, the GDP growth rate has set a reasonable range value, which can better guide expectations, make GDP more flexible and operable, and provide sufficient operating space for GDP development for governments at all levels; at the same time, local governments can turn more energy to structural adjustment, realize the real optimization of the economic structure, and lay a solid economic foundation for promoting transformation and development and accelerating the elimination of backward production capacity.
Third, GDP reflects more of the characteristics of green environmental protection, which is a huge progress in the way of economic governance. For example, Beijing has set a target of 5% reduction in smog and passed relevant legislation; plans to complete the withdrawal task of 300 manufacturing and pollution-dyeing enterprises; Hebei Province has passed the "Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution in Hebei Province", which has made clear provisions on the responsibilities of the government and its departments, various pollution source prevention and control measures, heavy pollution weather response mechanisms, regional coordination mechanisms, etc.; Shandong should implement production restriction and suspension of production in accordance with the law, do a good job in the transformation of coal-fired power plants and boilers, reduce the total amount of scattered coal, and so on. All have laid the environmental foundation for China's economy to move towards sustainable development. Fourth, GDP reflects more people's livelihood sentiments, so that people can fully share the fruits of social and economic development.
For example, Hebei proposed that by 2020, the urbanization rate of the province's permanent population should reach 60% and the urbanization rate of the household registration population should reach 45%," and regard the reform of the household registration system as an important means of "destocking" in various places; Gansu Province proposed to increase the monetization compensation and resettlement rate of shantytown transformation to more than 50%, and formulate a policy for settling urban migrant workers into the scope of housing provident fund security; Guangdong proposed to promote the reform of the housing system to meet the needs of new citizens, and gradually establish a housing system that buys and rents at the same time Qinghai proposed to speed up the reform of the household registration system and the "double landing" of the residence permit system, further relax the restrictions on settlement in Xining City, and establish a financial subsidy policy for farmers and herdsmen to buy houses and rent houses in the city; Shanghai and Guangxi began to adjust the maternity leave system, appropriately extend women's maternity leave and paternity leave, etc. All these policies and measures have made the proportion of people's livelihood in GDP more rising and promoting the continuous improvement of the people's production happiness index.
It can be asserted that the lowering of the GDP growth target is the gospel of China's economic development, which means that the prelude to China's economic and ecological development has been unveiled; it can also be expected that China's economy will enter a benign operation track and will also open a new era of economic development.