AsianFin -- Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a rare public rebuke of local governments for piling into the same emerging industries, signaling mounting concern in Beijing over excess capacity and economic headwinds from both domestic deflation and international trade tensions.

“When it comes to launching new projects, it’s always the same few things: artificial intelligence, computing power, new-energy vehicles,” Xi said during a meeting on urban development in Beijing this week, according to a front-page article in the People’s Daily on Thursday.

“Should every province in the country be developing industries in these areas?” Xi asked, in unusually blunt and colloquial remarks quoted by the Communist Party’s official newspaper.

The comments underscore growing unease among top policymakers that local governments are over-investing in sectors favored by the central government, leading to redundant capacity and slowing needed industry consolidation. State media typically emphasize Xi’s formal directives, making the candid tone all the more notable.