(Yicai) May 9 -- Only two of China’s 11 provincial capital cities with gross domestic products of more than CNY1 trillion (USD138.4 billion) reported economic growths higher than their respective provinces, according to official data.

The GDP growth rates of Fuzhou and Zhengzhou were the only ones to outpace those of their provinces, Fujian and Henan, respectively. The remaining nine provincial capitals with economic growths expanding slower than their provinces were Changsha, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Hefei, Jinan, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Xi’an.

China has 26 cities with GDP of over CNY1 trillion, including four municipalities directly controlled by the central government -- Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin. Thirteen of them reported GDP growth exceeding the national average of 5.3 percent in the first quarter of the year.

It is a common issue for provincial capitals to struggle in pillar industries. For example, Nanjing’s petrochemical and steel industries faced great pressure in the first quarter, and Xi’an’s automobile manufacturing industry, which was the one driving the city’s economy in recent years, recorded a drop in output value of 3.4 percent between January and March from a year earlier.

Provincial capitals, especially those in central and western China, have been attracting several industries in the past years. However, most of these industries are concentrated in a couple of fields or dominated by a few large companies, which means small changes in these factors can easily affect the economies of the cities.

In the meanwhile, economic powerhouses or minor cities performed well in the first quarter, becoming their provinces’ new growth points. Suzhou in eastern Jiangsu province achieved a GDP growth of 7.9 percent in the first three months of the year, ranking first among the 26 Chinese cities with GDP of over CNY1 trillion. Shenzhen in Guangdong province ranked fourth with 6.4 percent.

Shanghai continued to rank first among Chinese cities by GDP value in the first quarter, followed by Beijing and Shenzhen. Chongqing overtook Guangzhou to rank fourth.

Editor: Futura Costaglione