Under det sista kvartalet 2019 diskuterade jag vid flera tillf\u00e4llen den relativt l\u00e4ttgjorda sifferm\u00e4ssiga BNP-prognosen f\u00f6r 2019 och den kommande officiella m\u00e5ls\u00e4ttningen f\u00f6r 2020 \u00e5rs BNP-tillv\u00e4xt (exempelvis i chinaresearch.se<\/em><\/strong> fr\u00e5n den 18:e och 2:a december samt fr\u00e5n den 28:e oktober). Utl\u00e4ndska intressenters tillg\u00e5ng p\u00e5 de kinesiska statistiska originalk\u00e4llorna ter sig fortfarande otillr\u00e4cklig. Det inneb\u00e4r att den \u00e4ven i \u00e5r – trots det f\u00f6rest\u00e5ende ny\u00e5rsfirandet – alltf\u00f6r snabba publiceringen av det kinesiska BNP-utfallet f\u00f6r 2019 \u00e5nyo s\u00e4tter sina fr\u00e5getecken avseende kvalitet, omf\u00e5ng och noggrannhet.<\/p>\n I had my doubts about the quality of Chinese GDP statistics for quite some years. Major<\/em> qualitative progress still is not visible \u2013 even if some improvement may or should have taken place. One of the problems in such a context is certainly that motivated increasing credibility tends be hard to achieve when such doubts have been existing for many years.<\/p>\n Predictable GDP<\/strong><\/p>\n Briefly summarized, Chinese GDP results in 2019 looked as follows (which I have been predicting several times during the past quarter in my own blog chinaresearch.se<\/em><\/strong>, e.g. on December 18 and 2 and on October 28): Obviously, the Chinese remain being interested – as previously considered \u2013 in keeping \u201cthe six\u201d in front of the decimal point. This is also \u2013 most probably \u2013 why the official GDP-growth objective for 2020 is set at \u201caround 6 percent\u201d as foreseen here a couples of weeks ago.<\/p>\n Such a goal for GDP growth seems to be ambitious but also prestigious to achieve \u2013 \u201cprestigious\u201d particularly since 2021 is such an important year for China\u2019s political leaders. Therefore, I cannot imagine an official GDP growth (very slightly) below 6 % during 2020 for more than maybe one quarter or so. If necessary, the GDP-growth curve probably \u201chas to be reversed\u201d to the better during 2020 ahead of the 100th\u00a0<\/sup>anniversary day of the Communist Party in 2021 and the start of the new five-year plan \u2013 the 14th\u00a0<\/sup>\u2013 the same year.<\/p>\n Ten GDP issues to discuss further after the national-account publication <\/strong><\/p>\n International analysis after GDP publication on January 17 this year by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) turned out to remain mainly on the surface. Below, ten points with an obvious need of more discussion and more profound analysis are given \u2013 unless I have overlooked encouraging developments more recently.<\/p>\n Hubert Fromlet<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n
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\nGDP: +6.1 % yoy; GDP Q4 yoy: 6.0 %, Q4\/Q3:+1,5 %).<\/em><\/p>\n\n
\n<\/em>The summary of the national account for 2019 is written in the old style of planned economies with many numbers. The structure of the report makes the whole information difficult and monotonous to read. The lagging transparency may be at the expense of understanding and quality of analysis.<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>Already in previous years, I criticized that too much focus is put on the production side of national accounting which should be considered as a serious shortcoming. Also this time, I cannot find changes of GDP aggregates such as private consumption and net exports in real terms.<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>Almost even GDP numbers from quarter to quarter (2019 quarter on quarter, q1-q4: 1.4, 1.6, 1.4 and 1.5%) and the high predictability of annual GDP changes remain strange. So does the very early publication on January 17, also when considering the Chinese New Year celebrations.<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>In my view, this phenomenon is strange as well (happened again in 2019, \u201c6 to 6 \u00bd%\u201d \u2013 the outcome: 6.1%, despite structural domestic growth problems and international impediments from the trade war and the general downturn of the global economy). 6.1% may reflect a somewhat negative bias.<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>As has been singled out above, it is hard to find statistical improvements between the years. More frequent information \u2013 if available – would be useful in this respect.<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>Sure, some hints can be found, for example the officially high number of 236 million floating people of a population that in 2019 just exceeded 1.4 billion. I also like all the summing up of remaining problems that are mentioned in the comments on the national account for 2019 close to the end of the summary. However, what I still miss all the same is the continuous, regular and also systematic reporting on the development of these structural problems, maybe at other occasions. Certainly, one can never be sure having read everything about this topic \u2013 but this kind of difficulty is also an institutional shortcoming.<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>Normally, such a discussion is not part of ordinary national accounting. But the Chinese publish the growth rates for agriculture (2019:+3.1 %), industry (2019:+5.7 % but considerably more for high-tech manufacturing) and services (2019:+ 6.9 %). At least, this segment is partly taken up by Chinese authorities which may be helpful to some extent. We also learn that that the value added of the service sector now even exceeds the aggregated value of both industry and agriculture. It would be wonderful to learn even more about these developments – without setting expectations too high that this will be the case.<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>There is a lot of laudation in the introduction of the recent annual GDP report, including that stability has been maintained. What do we really know about this \u2013 and what does it really tell us? Anyway, also such an information does not really belong to national accounting. But having said \u201ca\u201d,\u2026<\/li>\n
\n<\/em>Urbanization in China continues to increase. This note is part of the comments on the national accounting for 2019. The official number of urbanization is now 60.6 percent of the total population. Without having tools to check these population numbers, it may be worth-while looking regularly at the population statistics. Urbanization will be \u2013 or should be \u2013 a future main driver of private consumption.<\/li>\n
\nThis is certainly not a topic for China\u2019s public administration but it would be interesting to know more about China analysts\u2019 independence or the presence (absence) of exaggerated psychological herd mentality when it comes to (statistical) forecasts or analysis. When regarding the qualitative shortcomings of Chinese statistics, non-government or private conclusions on the Chinese economy usually seem to be too uniform \u2013 running to strongly in the same direction.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University
\nEditorial board<\/a><\/p>\n