China Economic Data Questioned as Electricity Use Slows

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) The figures that go into China’s gross domestic product are “man-made” and “for reference only,” Li Keqiang, then a regional Communist Party head, said in 2007.

The comments by Li, now a vice premier who’s expected to become premier next spring, were revealed in a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks in late 2010. Li’s remarks are especially relevant as China announced today that the economy expanded 7.6 percent last quarter from a year earlier, the slowest pace in three years.

Investors, bankers and economists face a host of difficulties in interpreting the numbers from China’s statistics bureau, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its July 16 issue. Combining all officially reported provincial GDP numbers for last year produces a total exceeding national GDP by about 10 percent, Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said in February. Ma said that is due partly to double counting of items including factory production and that his bureau was trying to correct the issue.

China’s registered urban unemployment has moved between just under 4 percent and 4.3 percent for the last decade, while electricity consumption has slowed much faster than growth in official GDP when it normally should move more in tandem. That has stirred speculation GDP figures are being skewed upward in the run-up to a leadership transition this fall. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-13/china-economic-data-questioned-as-electricity-use-slows.html