Further Chinese Study

In China, it's long been said that officials create statistics to create careers. So in today's FT piece on the Middle Kingdom's efforts to "prop up growth" one line caught my eye.

(The spokesman for the National Bureau of Stats) had no explanation for the discrepancy between falling power consumption and rising industrial production but insisted that both figures were accurate and the issue required “further study”.

Time to get back to the books then...

PS Am indebted to The Gold Standard who pulled together this great post which makes the same point and backs it up with data. Cheers.

"Based on the official G.D.P. numbers, China’s growth has slowed in the worldwide recession, but remains very impressive. The electricity data paints a different picture.

Following are the year-over-year increases in its gross domestic product and electricity consumption for first quarter of each year.

2002: Electricity up 9.4%, G.D.P. up 8%
2003: Electricity up 14.7%, G.D.P. up 10.3%
2004: Electricity up 16.7%, G.D.P. up 9.8%
2005: Electricity up 14.3%, G.D.P. up 9.9%
2006: Electricity up 13.4%, G.D.P. up 10.4%
2007: Electricity up 12.4%, G.D.P. up 11.7%
2008: Electricity up 16%, G.D.P. up 10.6%"

Nuff said.