The World Bank welcomes
the release of new National Accounts data for China, according to a
news release of the World Bank Tuesday.
The new data, released Tuesday, show a GDP estimated for 2004
some 16.8 percent higher than was previously recorded, the World
Bank said in the news release. The new figures show that China's
economy is the world's seventh largest.
"These new GDP data are a major improvement over the previous
ones," said Bert Hofman, Chief of the Economics Unit of the World
Bank Office in Beijing, "and they are the result of the hard work
of NBS (National
Bureau of Statistics) staff and all people involved in this year's
National Economic Census."
Hofman said the data will give better information on the current
situation in the economy as well as on structural issues such as
sectoral shares in the economy.
"The new data are very timely," Hofman said, "as many policy
issues that the Government wants to tackle in the forthcoming 11th
Five Year Plan need reliable data for those issues to be assessed
correctly."
Hofman noted that some of the ratios that have drawn
policymakers' attention, such as Investment to GDP, Services to GDP
and Energy Intensity, are likely to change in light of the new GDP
numbers.
The World Bank notes that it is not uncommon that countries with
rapid growth regularly see major revisions in their GDP.
Misha V. Belkindas, Manager of the World Bank's Development Data
Group in Washington D.C. notes that the reason for revisions are
that many new enterprises are established in dynamic economies,
which are only imperfectly captured by the statistical system.
Moreover, surveys to determine GDP tend to under-represent rapidly
growing enterprises, said Belkindas.
"The important thing is that we now have better data to work
with," Hofman said, "and we are looking forward to a technical
briefing by NBS to understand the detail of the revisions."
With the increase in measured GDP, China passes Italy to become
the 6th largest economy in the world. China was previously
considered the world's seventh largest economy.
(Xinhua News Agency December 20, 2005)
