Up to 27 provinces in China have announced GDP growth for 2016 during their local two sessions, the annual conventions of their legislative and political consultative bodies to discuss the most pressing local concerns this year, according to domestic media reports.
Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region took a leading role with a GDP growth of 11.5 percent, followed by Chongqing Municipality at 10.7 percent and Guizhou Province, whose GDP grew 10.5 percent in the past year.
At 4.5 percent, North China's Shanxi Province had the lowest growth in 2016.
Northeast China's Heilongjiang and East China's Shanghai were second and third to last, with growth of 6.1 percent and 6.7 percent respectively.
As of Saturday, up to 28 provincial-level administration had launched their two sessions, and the only province that has convened the two sessions but not released its GDP growth was Northeast China's Liaoning Province. Liaoning's governor Chen Qiufa admitted on January 17 that some local financial figures had been falsified between 2011 and 2014.
China had a GDP growth of 6.7 percent for 2016, the National Bureau of Statistics noted on Friday, meeting government targets of between 6.5 percent and 7 percent set in the 2016 government work report.
"China's economic results were good in the past year. The trend is that the domestic economy is stable with signs of improvement," Xu Hongcai, deputy chief economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchange, told the Global Times on Saturday, noting that the economy rebounded in the fourth quarter.
China had a GDP growth of 6.7 percent in the first three quarters in 2016, rising to 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter.
Xu said the recent economic momentum might not last long as the investment sector is still lacking vigor, and the structural adjustment needs more time to complete.
Xu estimated that domestic GDP might be between 6.5 percent and 6.7 percent in 2017.
"There won't be dramatic changes," he said.
