China's detrimental numbers game
At the beginning of every year, countries around the world issue figures for economic growth, trade, immigration and so forth for the previous year.
The same is true of China — with a slight difference. Such figures for the year are often released before the year has ended. Also, national figures almost never correspond to the sum total of provincial figures.
This is a situation that has attracted foreign comment. This year, it attracted comment from a rather unusual source: the official Xinhua News Agency.
In an article last Thursday titled “The enigma of China's GDP statistics,” Xinhua said: “After the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday unveiled economic data for 2013, what grabbed the most attention was not only the 7.7-percent annual growth figure, but also a somewhat peculiar math problem.”
While the country's GDP amounted to 56.9 trillion yuan, or US$9.3 trillion dollars, Xinhua pointed out, the aggregate of the provincial GDP figures exceeded the national figures by 2 trillion yuan — with three of 31 provincial-level bodies not having reported their figures yet.
This phenomenon is not new. As Xinhua said, “the combined economic output of China's provinces has long exceeded that of the national level compiled by the NBS.”...MORE
