(Yicai) Sept. 26 -- Some provinces of China have reduced the number of government agencies in counties with small populations in recent years in a pilot initiative to lower their administrative costs and financial burden while increasing efficiency。

Maduo, a county in Qinghai province with a population of about 14,800, recently said it had merged local agencies, paring their ranks from 25 to 20. Some low-populated counties in Shanxi, Anhui, and Hunan provinces as well as Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have also completed initial work on downsizing and integrating local government agencies.

Counties are an important part of China’s administrative structure, serving as the basic level of local government and administration below the provincial and municipal levels. According to the 2020 census, populations are uneven across the counties, with 91 having over 1 million long-term inhabitants. Of the 2,075 included in the 2021 edition of the China Statistical Yearbook County Level, the headcount in 206 was under 100,000, including 90 with fewer than 50,000 residents.

The population of some counties is falling due to the migration trend toward central cities, Niu Fengrui, president of the think tank Guoxin Small and Medium Cities Index Research Institute, told Yicai. Fewer government agencies in low-populated counties will help increase administrative efficiency and reduce costs, he added.

The reduction is necessary to ease the fiscal pressure on these counties which have been running deficits for a long time as a result of relatively low fiscal incomes, according to Peng Peng, executive president of Guangdong Institutional Reform Research Association. Fewer agencies can also lower the institutional costs for cross-agency collaboration, Peng noted.

By way of example, Peng said one county in western China with a population of 40,000 had almost 2,500 people receiving financial support from the local government before the reform.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev