China’s growth figures fail to add up

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0ec404fc-8120-11de-92e7-00144feabdc0.html

by tokenadult • 17 years ago

23 14 17 years ago

tokenadult3• 17 years ago

"Even state-controlled media reports and editorials have in recent days raised questions over their accuracy.

"The Global Times, controlled by the People’s Daily, the Communist party mouthpiece, reported that the public reacted with 'banter and sarcasm' to NBS figures showing average urban wages in China rose 13 per cent in the first half to $2,142.

"It quoted an online poll showing 88 per cent of respondents doubted the official numbers."

When state-controlled media can post stories critical of other state agencies, that's a pretty good indicator of eroding trust.

seldo• 17 years ago

Or possibly emerging freedoms.

tokenadult3• 17 years ago

possibly emerging freedoms

I hope so. Things looked that way in 1989.

jhancock• 17 years ago

As to why the number are odd, its anyone's guess. I'm sure there are competing interests at various gov levels that would over or under-report. Just as likely is the various accounting systems for determining the numbers are flawed. Possibly not intentionally flawed, but these number are hard to assess. So its not surprising to see when you aggregate them and pull from different sources (different methods of reporting and guessing at the numbers) you may see wild discrepancies. I doubt that numbers over the last 8 years were correct either. The difference is no one cared to question them.

As to the view that its a landmark for the Chinese press to openly suspect the numbers, I don't think its such a landmark. I read the Shanghai and China Daily papers (English) every day while in Shanghai. I've been reading them for years. There is always info on gov corruption, fund misuse, crime, etc in the papers. I find the reporting style much better than most mass media U.S. papers. There are certain hot button issues that are suppressed, but that takes an active effort on each issue. Lots of negative information gets printed.

Let me put it another way. What is the current debt obligations of all investments banks on Wall Street? The numbers I've read (from different seemingly credible sources) are wildly different.

I would guess that most locals in China when reading something like "average urban wages in China rose 13 per cent" take it as laughable. Not just because they don't feel it in their own pocket, but they know its almost impossible to know such a number.

Seiwynd2• 17 years ago

I'm confused ... so National Government percentage < actual assumed percentage?

If so, what benefit could there be to that? I can understand inflating figures to make oneself sound better, but I don't really get why you would report smaller numbers.

tokenadult3• 17 years ago

As I read the article with my background in sinology, what appears to be reported here is that China has some actual level of economic growth, which I will call X. The central government, desiring to look good to the common people, reports a level of economic growth X+N. One clue that the central government statistics are dubious is that provincial governments report figures that would imply a level of X+N+M (all numbers are positive numbers), yet the central government doesn't aggregate the provincial figures, implying that the provincial governments desire to look good to the central government. Another clue that the central government statistics are dubious is that online discussion of those statistics expresses open doubt, even in a country with much state control of all mass media.

Does this look like a fair summary of the article's claims? They seem plausible to me.

Seiwynd2• 17 years ago

Oh right. I feel stupid now, I assumed the provincial figures were accurate, but it makes much more sense that those numbers are doctored to try and please the central governement. Thanks for the explanation.

smanek• 17 years ago

Sun Tzu: Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective. [...] Feign inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

Either that, or provinces tend to over-report growth to make themselves look good so Beijing corrects reported numbers downward.

brk• 17 years ago

Did Sun Tzu say anything about child labor and leeching contaminants into the local water supply?

berntb• 17 years ago

Hardly... not allowing child labor is mainly an idea from the last century. Please consider history before reacting.

(And environmental/farmer/etc protection has a spotty history in non-democratic societies. That is, everywhere up until recently.)

californiaguy• 17 years ago

I don't know, did Benjamin Franklin?

http://www.epa.gov/superfund/

est• 17 years ago

I don't know much about econmics, but here's an explaination on the Internet for last year's similar news:

'province' is political region, and you can't simply 'add up' those provice GDP figures because many of Chinese companies are inter-provincial. Each provincial officials will try their best to make the figure look large, but the central government has to eliminate duplicate ones.

The real question is why the gap 15,376bn-13,986bn=1390bn is so huge?

miked• 17 years ago

I no longer have the link, but a few years ago I read critiques of Chinese government economic statistics based on a comparison of electricity demand versus gov stats. Quite a discrepancy, as the electricity demand was much lower that the growth stats would predict.

My problem with the stats is that, while I can easily believe the cities are growing at 8%, most Chinese still live in the countryside, and it still quite poor, albeit not as poor as it once was. My uncle-in-law supports his family by farming strawberries on 2 mu of land, roughly an acre or so. That acre's not growing at 8% a year, and they're still using the same fertilizer they always have -- human feces.

China’s growth figures fail to add up

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