China’s Official data is notorious for its inaccuracy and even the Chinese joke around about it. However, recently researchers at the San Francisco Fed took a closer look at the GDP calculations by China’s National Bureau of Statistics and thought it was OK. The researchers used two separate indexes and created their own calculations based on either official data from International Monetary Fund or alternative sources. They concluded “[they found] no evidence that China’s slowdown in 2012 was greater than officially reported”.
Source: WSJ
As much as financial sector reports are awash with incorrect data and unreliable calculations, seeing some clarity or credibility shows signs that China is headed in the proper direction. China was one of the countries that did not suffer much from the recession and was able to avoid an “official recession” by definition. This circumstance may be the impetus behind more credible accounting or reporting since during 2008, comparatively, China suffered much less than the United States and other closely intertwined countries. It would be interesting to see how, if China was suffering closely to other countries how their reports may have differed to bolster their economies image during that time.
There’s another post on this, here on GDP growth stats. I commented on that one first, so look there for my take on this issue.