June 6, 2013
Translated by Pang Lei

Two provinces of China announced the appointment of new governors yesterday.

At the close of a meeting of Heilongjiang's provincial-level National People's Congress yesterday, Lu Hao (陆昊) was officially appointed as the new governor of the northeastern province.

Delegates to Shandong's provincial-level National People's Congress, which also wrapped up yesterday, voted to appoint Guo Shuqing (郭树清), the former head of China's securities regulator, as governor of the second most populated of China's provinces.

Both men held the position of acting provincial governor for the preceeding 3 months.

In March this year, the CPC Central Committee appointed both men to the position of deputy party secretary of each respective province and they were later declared acting governors by the standing committee of the local NPCs.

According to existing regulations, provincial governors can only be appointed following a vote of the full body of the provincial-level People's Congress and so they had to wait until the next plenary session of the congress before they could officially be appointed to the position of governor.

Plenary meetings of the provincial-level NPCs usually only take place once a year and Heilongjiang and Shandong usually hold these meetings in January. However, in order to hasten the appointment of the new governors, the second meeting of the 12th provincial NPC of each province was brought forward from Jan 2014 to June this year.

Similar changes to the schedule of provincial-level meetings have taken place in the past and they're usually associated with new leadership appointments, according to an article in today's Southern Metropolis Daily.

For example, in Apr 2008  Ji Bingxuan (吉炳轩) was appointed Party Head of Heilongjiang province, and in May that year, the full body of the provincial-level NPC met to formally appoint Ji to the position of Chairman of the Provincial People's Congress Standing Committee.

Similarly, after Wang Xiankui (王宪魁) was moved from his position has deputy party secretary of Jiangxi province to acting governor of Heilongjiang in Aug of 2010, a meeting of the full body of the provincial-level NPC was held in November that year. At that meeting delegates voted to officially appoint him as governor.

When there are no major changes to leadership positions, a plenary meeting of Heilongjiang's provincial congress will be held in January.

The Southern Metropolis Daily described both of the new appointments as "celebrity officials" (明星官员).

Links and Sources
Southern Metropolis Daily: 陆昊任黑龙江省长 郭树清任山东省长