Industrial productivity and convergence in Chinese regions: The effects of entering the world trade organisation

▶ Central regions have recorded the largest increase in industrial productivity. Overall, growth in productivity has been fuelled by an enhancement of technology. ▶ Convergence results do not reveal great changes in the country as a whole following 2001. However, existing regional differences in terms of industrial value added are seen to have increased slightly due to western regions developing more rapidly. ▶ Computing beta convergence makes it possible to conclude that growth in poor regions has outpaced that in wealthy regions, although the rate of convergence barely exceeds 1%.