China eyes quality development

In Tiannan county in East China's Jiangxi province, agriculture used to prop up growth. But before GDP targets were lowered the county introduced three ceramic factories and a non-ferrous metal processing plant, fouling the environment.

"If we didn't develop these industries, our GDP would have remained near the bottom in evaluations," said Sheng Hengda, secretary of the Tiannan County Committee of the Communist Party of China.

But now that the country has eased GDP pressure on local officials, the county has seen its surroundings improve significantly, Sheng told Xinhua.

"We have equipped the factories with pollution-treating facilities," he added.

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In Southwest China's Sichuan province, the provincial government has split cities and counties into different groups for evaluation. According to a regulation published on June 27, 58 counties with good eco-systems are now exempt from GDP assessment, with their future evaluation based on forest acreage and the poverty rate.

Quality development

As the growth-driven evaluation system loses momentum, places are aiming at quality development models by supporting the tertiary industry and improving people's livelihoods in environment-friendly ways.

In the first half of 2014, Beijing closed 213 polluting companies. In addition, sectors such as information technology, financial services and high technology exceeded 50 percent of the city's GDP growth in the January-June period.

From January to May, six high-tech sites in Beijing, including Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park, achieved a 10.1 percent income increase, making up more than 90 percent of the city's hi-tech manufacturing income.

At the same time, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region shifted its focus from GDP to ecological protection.

"Although the overall GDP growth rate went down, the government now has more time to protect the environment, and to transform the development model. It will be healthy in the long-run," said Zhao Hong, vice-president of Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.