Over 67 percent of China's provinces have trimmed down their growth forecast for 2020 after the central government announced that it would begin computing provincial gross domestic product totals.
The GDP compilation comes as the company's focus shifts towards consistent and high-quality growth and coping with the rapidly changing technological and demographic landscape.
The National Bureau of Statistics has disclosed that it would start calculating provincial GDP numbers this year to avoid record congestion from local statistics offices.
Twenty-one out of the 31 provincial-level area of responsibility by the country have announced that they would reduce their growth outlook following their respective meetings with the People's Congress, where they finalized local development plans.
Beijing's municipal authorities cut their target from 6 percent, down from the 6.2 percent growth reported in 2019.
In contrast, Guangdong, the province with the biggest economy at 10.5 trillion yuan (US$ 1.5 trillion), also released a target of 6 percent, down from the growth rate of 6.3 percent last year.
Some rapidly rising areas have eased their planned expansion rate. For example, Guizhou's southwestern province, which in recent years has attracted substantial investment, has an 8 percent growth aim after 2019's increase of 9 percent.
China's two other key areas, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, have yet to announce their targets and seven others, including Liaoning and the municipality of Chongqing, have not made any revisions to their goals this year.
So far, the financially challenged Tianjin province has been the only one to set a bigger target of about 5 percent for 2020. Its growth figure for 2019 was 4.5 percent.
Renewed focus on economic competitiveness by the state regulators would require extensive efforts to limit unemployment, and a financial system shake-up targeting vulnerable retail investors.
America's $14 trillion trade and financial market is generally seen to set a national target of around 6 percent, backed by a ballooning fiscal deficit compared to 2019's 2.8 percent and bigger domestic special bond quotas than the period's 2.15 trillion yuan.
This highly cautious approach reflects worries with regards the possibility of pressing local authorities to hit their high growth targets.
After the global financial crisis of 2008, the spending boom has seen local governments build up debts worth a total of 21.3 trillion yuan and a possible 30 trillion yuan of tacit liabilities.
But there's also a long-drawn goal of reducing high-poverty statistics and becoming a moderately prosperous region by end of the year, which means ramping up efforts to double the region's GDP.
