SEVERAL of China’s provincial-level governments are aiming to notch year-on-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth of more than 6 percent this year, lawmakers said as they convened their annual legislative meetings.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing and Shanghai suffered negative economic growth in the first half of 2020 and achieved 1.2 and 1.7 percent GDP growth respectively in the whole year, according to government reports.

Shanghai set its GDP target for 2021 at more than 6 percent, while Beijing is also aiming to notch its year-on-year GDP growth to around 6 percent this year, local authorities said.

Tianjin Municipality targets an economic growth of 6.5 percent in 2021, Liao Guoxun, mayor of Tianjin, said in his government work report delivered yesterday.

Tianjin aims to increase its fixed assets investment by 8 percent and its total retail sales up by 5 percent in 2021, according to the report. Tianjin also aims to create about 350,000 new jobs, with its urban unemployment rate to stay at about 5.5 percent in 2021.

In 2020, Tianjin recorded a 1.5-percent gross domestic product growth.

Hainan said Sunday that its economic growth would be no less than 10 percent in 2021, as compared to about 6.5 percent for 2020.

Central China’s Hubei Province, once hit hard by the COVID-19 epidemic, set its GDP growth target at more than 10 percent in 2021, Governor Wang Xiaodong said Sunday.

The province’s GDP in 2020 recovered to over 95 percent of the previous year’s level, Wang added. (Xinhua)