Administrations below provincial level should give up calculating their GDPs and concentrate on public services, social management and supervising market places, an economist has advocated.

Hu Angang , director of the Centre for China Studies at Tsinghua University, submitted his proposal outlining economic development strategies for the next five years to the central government.

He says governments should shift their focus from economics to social security, Xinhua reported yesterday.

"Only by easing the GDP growth targets and strengthening the governments' [basic social] obligations may China realise a real transformation of the functions of government in the coming five years," he said.

According to his proposal, the mainland can achieve its goal of doubling its 2000 GDP by 2010 with an annual growth rate of 7.2 per cent.

But Professor Hu said many provinces had set targets surpassing the official target - about 8 per cent growth - with many provincial governments setting that as a minimum, and lower-level governments aiming even higher.

"It is worth being on guard against such accelerating growth targets," he said.

He proposed 30 obligatory indexes to evaluate government performance, including employment, energy consumption, control of pollution, transfers of the rural labour force and social services.

"Governments are responsible for these obligatory indexes," Professor Hu said. "They have to honour their political promises and show their efficiency by reaching those targets within the set periods."

He said the indexes also would reflect the basic obligations of the government in offering social services to the public under the market economy.