Meng Fanli, the party chief of Shenzhen, has been promoted party chief of Guangdong’s government, a job that effectively makes him the governor-in-waiting of China’s largest provincial economy.
Meng, 60, was moved to Guangdong in 2022, when he was assigned as party chief of Shenzhen city, according to the province’s official news outlet Nanfang Daily’s social media account.
The title of party chief of the provincial government doubles with the position of governor, and Meng’s appointment in that role is expected to be confirmed by the provincial legislature soon.
Meng is filling the vacancy left by the incumbent governor Wang Weizhong, who was promoted to party chief of Inner Mongolia on Tuesday.
Wang, 63, was appointed to the Guangdong governorship in 2021, after four years as the party chief of Shenzhen.
Tuesday’s announcements were made a day after the monthly Politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, a usual window for decisions on personnel changes at the provincial level and above.
Shenzhen’s economy faced both internal and external challenges at the start of Meng’s term, with the city’s GDP growth slowing to 3.3 per cent in 2022, brought on by a triple-whammy of the Covid-19 pandemic, a property downturn and the painful adjustments of the China-US trade war.
