The first meeting of the Committee on Statistics under the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific is being held in Bangkok, Thailand, from February 4 to 6. Ma Jiantang, Director of China's National Bureau of Statistics, is attending the meeting as the head of a delegation. He was interviewed by Ren Jianmin, a reporter from the People's Daily in Thailand, on February 5.

Ma said that upon the release of the final verified GDP for 2007, a debate was aroused in the international community.

The calculation of GDP statistics is a very complex process. The GDP accounting system in China consists of three steps: preliminary accounting, preliminary verification and final verification. Within the last 20 days of a year, preliminary accounting is calculated according to a data snapshot. In the middle of the following year, when annual reports and financial data are more comprehensive, a preliminary verified GDP is calculated after revisions are made. At the end of the year, the revised GDP for the previous year (or the final verified GDP) is made, based on final annual data and financial settlements.

GDP revision is an international practice. The collection of annual reports and financial data is completed step by step in all countries. The US makes five revisions to its annual GDP figure, Canada revises three times, and Germany makes four revisions.

In the fourth quarter of last year, China released its GDP growth rate as 6.8 percent. Following its release, two points of view emerged in the international debate.

One is that the official figure is higher than the actual growth rate. If China's power consumption registered a negative growth, how was it possible that the GDP growth rate was 6.8 percent? Such a question shows that people holding this point of view do not have much understanding of the way various factors of economic performance work.

The other view is that the growth rate has been underestimated intentionally, saying that the Chinese government has under reported last year's growth rate in order to lay the foundation for achieving the target of a 8 percent growth rate in 2009. However, these projections are purely subjective and are unfounded.

Even though China's statistics system still needs to be perfected, it is still relatively sophisticated for the Asia-Pacific region.

China's statistics system employs 100,000 staff workers and has investigation teams at the provincial and municipal levels under the direct jurisdiction of the National Statistic Bureau. Furthermore, China's statistics system is relatively comprehensive and its methods and standards are for the most part in line with the international community. Its ability to provide services for economic operations is also improving gradually.

By People's Daily Online

http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2009-02/06/content_187542.htm