(Yicai Global) Aug. 9 -- Fujian, Shandong and other key economically developed Chinese provincial-level regions have said they will do their utmost to meet the country’s economic targets and social development goals this year, despite the setbacks from a resurgence of Covid-19 in the first half.

Southeastern Fujian province will focus on promoting high-quality development of the local economy to achieve this year’s targets, the provincial government said at a work conference held on July 29.

Eastern Shandong province will take responsibility as an economically developed province to coordinate epidemic prevention and control work as well as promote economic and social development so as to reinforce good economic momentum, the provincial government said on July 30.

The governments of southern Guangdong, as well as central Henan and Hubei provinces also recently made similar statements.

The economic performance of key regions is particularly important as the pressure on the economy has not been eliminated, Luo Zhiheng, chief economist of Yuekai Securities, told Yicai Global.

Economically developed provinces are those with a high gross domestic product, leading fiscal revenue and strong development indicators and most of them are located in the east of the country. Last year, the top 10 provincial-level regions in terms of GDP were Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Henan, Sichuan, Hubei, Fujian, Hunan and Shanghai.

As long as the economically strong provinces achieve stable development, this will guarantee high-quality development of the national economy, Chen Hongyu, economics professor at the Party School of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of CPC, told Yicai Global. They do not need to achieve fast economic growth, but rather should make innovative structural adjustments, he added.

Local governments face a great challenge in finding a way to stabilize the economy, in view of the restrictions imposed to achieve epidemic prevention and control, but there is no alternative, said Yang Zhiyong, vice president of the National Academy of Economic Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Core Position

The eastern coastal provinces are not only major contributors to the economy, their core position in the industrial chain also affects production in other regions and they provide a large number of job opportunities for laborers from the central and western areas, Luo said.

Stabilizing the economy in the eastern regions can guarantee local fiscal revenue which will provide more funds for the transfer payments from the central government to economically underdeveloped regions, Luo added.

Fujian, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong contributed more than one-third of the country’s GDP last year, with fiscal revenue accounting for nearly 40 percent of China’s total. Nearly 80 percent of net fiscal income to the central government was generated by these five.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor