(Yicai Global) March 7 -- Given that measuring regional economic development purely by gross domestic product does not meet the needs of green development, it has been suggested during the Two Sessions that China should gradually set up a dual assessment system: one for GDP and one for gross ecosystem product.

The democratic party Jiusan Society suggested that policies related to GEP evaluation guidelines should be improved and that GEP should be incorporated into the system of national accounts, providing a basis for using GEP to assess local governments.

The party also recommended pilot projects for this in the provinces of Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Qinghai as well as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, adding that the dual assessment criteria for GDP and GEP could be fully implemented during the current 14th Five-Year Plan period, which runs from 2020 to 2025.

Jiusan Society also proposed that the results of the dual assessment be released regularly and a comprehensive quality control mechanism for ecological monitoring data should be established, as that could help in guiding political performance and ecological improvement.

Zhejiang and Guizhou provinces have already released their technical specifications for GEP accounting, with more than 23 cities and 100 counties launching pilots for GEP accounting.

GEP evaluation will help local governments to rediscover the value of ecological resources and develop new models of ecological industrialization, Song Youtao, dean of the School of Environment at Liaoning University, told Yicai Global. 

He said the total value of ice and snow services in northeastern China is estimated to have been as much as CNY2.96 trillion (USD470 billion) in 2019, and the region will seek more potential indicators and incorporate them into the GEP accounting system.

Editor: Tom Litting