China Nearly Doubles Its Growth Tally
China’s government sharply increased the official size of its economy in a report today that said output grew by 16.8% last year -- nearly twice the figure previously reported.
The figures were issued by the National Bureau of Statistics after a survey meant to gather more accurate data on China’s emerging service industries such as restaurants and retailers, which were underreported in earlier statistics.
The data could have far-reaching effects on social and economic policymaking as the government tries to create jobs, formulates investment strategy and copes with complaints by its trading partners about the state-controlled value of its currency.
The government will be revising economic growth figures back to 1993 based on the new research, the director of the statistics bureau, Li Deshui, said at a news conference.
“These new figures give us a clearer picture and a better way of understanding China’s economy,” Li said. “Based on these figures, we can have even more confidence in our long-term fairly fast and sustained economic growth.”
Based on the new data, China replaced Italy as the world’s sixth-largest economy in 2004 but still ranked behind Britain and France, Li said. He said Beijing would have to wait for this year’s figures before it would know its current rank.
China’s overall economic rank would jump to No. 4, behind only the U.S., Japan and Germany, if the Chinese territory of Hong Kong were included in the data.
Hong Kong is treated as a separate economy by government officials and has its own currency and trade statistics.
Economists have long said that China’s already stunning official figures showing annual growth above 9% in recent years understate the size of its economy because of antiquated data gathering that focused on manufacturing and undercounted emerging service industries.
Based on the new research, the government raised its estimate of economic output in 2004 to nearly 15.987 trillion yuan (nearly $1.981 trillion), Li said.
Despite the sharp upward revision of its gross domestic product, China still ranks below the top 100 countries in economic output per person, Li said.
