The country's top statistical body, the National Bureau of
Statistics (NBS), has suspended their annual list of top 100
counties among the country's 2,800 candidacies this year, according
to a Decision Making magazine report on December 4.
The news probably cools off the over-heated competition
triggered off in September and October amid agitated local
governors with strong expectations to squeeze their counties on the
list that honors local economic achievements. Goldman Sachs Group
Inc., a global investment banking and securities firm that contains
33 persuasive indexes for counties to lure investors, recognizes
this listing. The magazine reported that the assessment, revised in
2000, evaluates local medical care, education, energy consumption
and environment protection, in addition to GDP growth.
Several potential counties lost face when the green-blue algae
blanketed Taihu Lake this summer, stinking up water sources in half
of the leading 10 counties on the Top 100 list. Tap water became
fetid in one of the country's most developed areas and local
residents had to queue up for bottled water, which sold out as soon
as it arrived in supermarkets during the polluted days.
The department responsible for the Top 100 election inside the
Statistics Bureau has been involved in a national survey of
agricultural development since 2006, officials told Decision
Making when explaining why there has been no listing of top
100 counties this year. Apart from the top 100 counties, the bureau
also cancelled elections for the top 100 cities and elections for
the top 1,000 towns.
In January, NBS Director Xie Fuzhan said that the bureau planned
to do more mathematical calculations to improve the Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) assessment, in order to determine correct
energy-consuming indexes and to evaluate service and agricultural
industries this year. Experts believed these informative
statistics, like the agricultural survey, would be more helpful
than the city and county listings for policy makers.
Shenmu, one of the richest counties in Shaanxi Province, with
its fiscal revenues hitting 1.98 billion yuan (US$267 million) last
year, has also been home to 120,000 poverty-stricken residents, or
one third of its total population, Decision Making
reported on December 4. Yet the county produced more than 8.2
million tons of crude coal last year. The coal mine production
dried up the river in Wanghua Village, a locality of the county.
Approximately 400 mu (26.67 hectare) of farmlands belonging to the
village became barren, driving local men to leave their homes to
seek work on construction sites and forcing local women to sell
rubbish to survive. Although the mine owners paid 20,000 yuan to
each villager, the subsidies were inadequate compared with the
farmers' losses. "What can we do when the compensation runs out?
There is no more land to plough and no water to drink," said a
local farmer.
Similar troubles also worry local bureaucrats. An official from
neighboring Fugu County told the magazine: "We introduced business
enterprises to benefit our people and improve their lives. But in
fact, the firms have caused massive pollution, ruined our natural
resources and harmed people's health."
According to a survey conducted by Chen Yao, a researcher from
the Institute of Industrial Economics of Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, the top 100 counties have doubled their costs in a
decade-from 150 million yuan while creating 100 million yuan in
GDP.
To put an end to the energy-consuming economic circle, the State
Council has issued an evaluation system of energy consumption per
GDP in November of this year. Resources-saving performance will
play a key role in deciding provincial governors' future careers as
of next year. In fact, a veto from the environmental protection
bureau could deny potential awards to local governors.
According to a survey conducted by the media among Shaoxing
natives in August, an ideal model county should be capable of
keeping the environment pristine; narrow the income gap among
residents; lower the unemployment rate and build up a reliable
security system for local citizens. Yao Jingyuan, chief economist
from the National Bureau of Statistics, said that the assessment of
economic sustainability is more important than the evaluation of
current development. "But," he noted, "the problem is how to assess
it."
(China.org.cn by Wu Jin December 10, 2007)
