McKinsey Classics: China's productivity opening

MCKinsey Classics | August 2016

China’s productivity opening

The McKinsey Global Institute knows China. MGI released Leapfrogging to higher energy productivity in China in 2007 and followed up two years later with Preparing for China’s urban billion and If you’ve got it, spend it: Unleashing the Chinese consumer. Read these classic—and still very relevant—studies of economic and social conditions in China. And for McKinsey’s latest take on them, visit our new series of articles, which explores the country’s emergent trends, growth prospects, and more—including the new MGI report China’s Choice: Capturing the $5 trillion productivity opportunity.

Leapfrogging to higher energy productivity in China

By taking advantage only of currently existing technologies that pay for themselves, this 2007 MGI report showed, China could reduce total energy demand in 2020 by as much as 23 percent.

Preparing for China’s urban billion

In 2009, MGI argued that China’s local and national policy leaders could minimize the pressures and maximize the economic benefits of urban expansion by pursuing a more concentrated urbanization path to boost the productivity of cities.

If you’ve got it, spend it: Unleashing the Chinese consumer

Also in 2009, MGI showed that by pursuing a more aggressive program of comprehensive reform, China’s leaders could raise private consumption above 50 percent of GDP by 2025, vaulting China’s economy into a new phase.

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