Major Chinese cities are set to follow the lead of Beijing and Shanghai by including transient workers in their calculations of annual per-capita gross domestic product (GDP), rather than just the registered population.
Major cities like Beijing and Shanghai made the change in government reports of the 2007 economic performance, which were reviewed at the recent municipal people's congresses.
In the race of GDP figures, a measure of political achievements by local government officials, Chinese cities used to exclude the large number of transients, who made contribution to the local economy.
The number of transients, whose stay for more than half a year in a city, is added into the city's annual accounting of total permanent population.
Beijing registered 4.19 million transients last year, accounting for 25.6 percent of the total population. About 4.67 million transients remained for more than half a year in Shanghai in 2007, also equivalent to a quarter of the total of permanent residents, official statistics show.
Shanghai realized 1.2 trillion yuan in GDP in 2007. With an 18.45-million-registered population, the per-capita GDP would have reached 87,000 yuan. However, the government report used the per-capita GDP of 65,000 yuan, as the city took consideration of the transients.
"The per-capita GDP figures computed on registered population in major Chinese cities are getting close to those in some developed countries. However, if the number of transients was taken into account, the deducted figures would cool down the city leaders' complacency," said Lu Hanlong, director of the Social Development Research Institute under the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
In Beijing, about 4 million transients contributed 240 billion yuan of the city's total 900.6 billion yuan in GDP. Taking them into account, the per-capita GDP in the national capital was 56,000 yuan last year.
Besides the push for more scientific per-capita GDP accounting, the cities have been working on giving fairer education, medicare and social insurance protection for transients, many of whom may stay for long periods, or even settle down.
(Xinhua News Agency January 29, 2008)
