CHINA will revise its 2018 gross domestic product (GDP) estimate in the next few days to reflect an increase in the number of businesses and assets recorded in the last census, officials said. China’s fourth National Economic Census, released yesterday, included “richer” data points that showed more business entities and a bigger total asset base in 2018 than assumed under earlier GDP estimates, said Li Xiaochao, deputy head of the statistics bureau. While the revisions typically have no immediate bearing on policy, some analysts see other implications for longer-term economic targets if past estimates are revised higher. Li said the details of the revision would be made public “in a few days” but declined to say if they would lead to higher or lower output or GDP growth rate for 2018. The world’s second-largest economy grew to 90.03 trillion yuan (US$12.81 trillion) in 2018, according to preliminary revisions this year. The 6.6 percent growth was the slowest in almost three decades but was in line with China’s target of around 6.5 percent. Days before GDP data for 2018 was released in January, the statistics bureau cut its final 2017 GDP growth figure to 6.8 percent from 6.9 percent. At a briefing yesterday, Li told reporters the planned 2018 GDP revision is not for the purpose of meeting a certain target, but to reflect changes in accounting rules and data sources. New data from the 2018 census showed services sector assets far outweighed those in the industrial and mining sectors, including manufacturing and construction, with a ratio of 81 percent versus 19 percent. Services also contributed more in revenues and jobs. (SD-Agencies) |