China's resource-dependent and manufacturing-heavy provinces suffered the sharpest growth slowdown in the first quarter as the government pushed to reduce overcapacity and pollution, adding to signs of protracted weakness in the economy.
Annual economic growth in Hebei province, the nation's top steel producer, tumbled to 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2014 from 8.2 percent in the previous quarter, according to data
released by government websites and official newspapers.
Inner Mongolia, which provides one-third of the coal supply in the country, saw gross domestic product (GDP) growth dipping to 7.3 percent in the first quarter from 9.9 percent a year earlier.
Growth in Heilongjiang was 4.1 percent in the first quarter, the lowest among 30 of 31 provinces and municipalities, according to the data.
Economic growth was 5.5 percent in Shanxi, a major coal producing province which has been hit by slumping coal prices.
Shaanxi province has yet to publish its first-quarter growth data.
First-quarter growth in almost all Chinese provinces was below their annual targets, according to local media.
China has rejected a World Bank report that suggests it might pass the United States this year to become the biggest economy measured by its currency's purchasing power.
China is on track to become the No. 1 economy by sheer size by the early 2020s and possibly sooner. But its leaders downplay such comparisons, possibly to avert pressure to take on financial obligations or make concessions on trade or climate change.
The estimate by the World Bank's International Comparison Program says that based on 2011 prices, the purchasing power of China's currency, the yuan, was much stronger than was reflected by exchange rates.
By that measure, China's economy was 87 percent the size of the United States' in 2011, or 15 percent bigger than the previous estimate, according to a calculation by RBS economist Louis Kuijs. Faster-growing China would pass the United States in purchasing power terms this year, though it still would be about 60 percent the size of the U.S. economy at market exchange rates.
China's National Bureau of Statistics, which took part in the study, rejected its conclusion, according to the World Bank report.
The statistics bureau "expressed reservations" about the study's methodology and "did not agree to publish the headline results for China," the report said.
A figure was estimated anyway by researchers, but "the NBS of China does not endorse these results as official statistics," the report said.
The statistics bureau in Beijing did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
China's government has been reluctant to acknowledge previous milestones showing its economic rise when it passed Germany as the biggest exporter, Japan as the No. 2 economy and the United States as the biggest trader.
Its leaders have emphasized China's status as a middle-income country in resisting pressure to adopt binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, for which their country is the biggest source.
The International Comparison Program, conducted every six years, is meant to allow comparisons of living standards in countries with widely varying prices.
