New | Guangdong struggles to keep top spot as China’s economic powerhouse while Jiangsu closes in

Keeping Guangdong’s place as China’s top province in terms of economic output is proving more challenging than ever for its party chief, as its biggest competitor, Jiangsu province, closes in.

All eyes are on Hu Chunhua as the public and politicians alike watch to see if he will have what it takes to further boost Guangdong’s economy amid the nationwide slowdown and struggling foreign trade.

Guangdong’s gross domestic product grew 8 per cent, reaching 7.28 trillion yuan last year. This compared with the national economy’s growth rate of 6.9 per cent.

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But it’s not yet time to celebrate – the economic output of Guangdong’s closest rival, Jiangsu, also surpassed 7 trillion yuan last year. And the province's per capita GDP last year was US$14,000, compared with Guangdong’s US$10,800.

That’s not all. Some 134 businesses on the list of China’s Top 500 Private Enterprises in 2015, released by the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, were from Zhejiang province and 93 were from Jiangsu.

Only 40 private enterprises from Guangdong made it to the list – a figure even smaller than Shandong province’s 48.

Private firms generate up to 70 per cent of the national GDP, creating nearly 90 per cent of employment and accounting for 60 per cent of the nation’s tax revenue, according to economics professor Hu Xingdou with the Beijing Institute of Technology.