Lies, damn lies, and China's economic statistics

[manojb]

China Growth Rate Actually Closer to Zero: Analyst

China Growth Rate Actually Closer to Zero: Analyst - New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD TV)

It is no question that China—which has reported double-digit growth rates in the last three decades—is slowing down. Amidst the Eurozone Financial Crisis, and the global economy heavily vested in China, a Chinese economic cooling is not a good forecast for anyone. So the question looms, “how bad is it?” Author and economics analyst Gordon Chang says the real situation cannot be seen through the official growth figures. [Gordon Chang, Economics Analyst]: “The best indicator of Chinese economic activity is the production of electricity. And in April, electricity increased by 0.7%, and in May It was 2.7%. but in June it actually shrank by 0.8%. And because of electricity historically outpaces the growth of gross domestic product, it means that China couldn’t have been growing much more than zero in the second quarter.” For July, the figures for industrial power consumption were muted, further highlighting a slowdown. Chang says other indicators also suggest that China has hit an inflection point, and faces very low future growth. [Gordon Chang, Economics Analyst]: “China went on this massive Easter egg hunt for commodities around the world, buying them up, and all of a sudden in the last three or four months it realized it couldn’t use all of them. So it’s being stored…it shows the Chinese economy doesn’t need all this iron ore, doesn’t need this copper, doesn’t need the coal that it’s buying. And that’s really the best indicator of what’s happened in China.” Chinese authorities have forecasted around 8% growth for the second quarter. But already for July, indicators including export figures, fixed-asset investments and manufacturing outputs are sounding off alarms for analysts that the worst could be yet to come. - See more at: China Growth Rate Actually Closer to Zero: Analyst - New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD TV)

 

[djsjs]

@manojb
you reminds me of two "in five years"
1,in five years the world will forget shanghai
2,in five years China will collapse

 

[Götterdämmerung]

Lower Limit - USD 3.5 Trillion
Upper Limit - USD 4.5 Trillion

So, Chinese imports is between 50 % and 80 % of its GDP.

Wow at Indian logic!

 

[faithfulguy]

Yes ....everything is lie ....Strides that china has made are all lies ....What we saw in Beijing Olympics was also lie ...
Only the American newspapers which say so are correct ....They are the holy cows ....

Or is it American intelligence ...that's why Us has invested so heavily in China ....
And record high US treasury bonds that China holds ....that's also lie ...

I read this article 3 days back on TOI , and didn't care and knew that one of our Indian fellow will post it to belittle Chinese guys here ....
Those experts who say that Chinese figures are lies are the first ones to invest in China ...These kinds of stories are periodically released for big audience of China-haters ! Well it feels nice to hear about shortcomings of " Enemy " ....grow up guys
I find this whole exercise of posting articles defiling each other's countries reputation as childish .

You are new here. And we need more reasonable Indians like you here.

 

[StarCraft_ZT]

Who started this thread? Definitely Indians...

Indians cannot beat us with real power, so they decide to beat China with sour grapes.

 

[timetravel]

Who started this thread? Definitely Indians...

Indians cannot beat us with real power, so they decide to beat China with sour grapes.

No we will beat you with spoiled tomatoes...

 

[StarCraft_ZT]

No we will beat you with spoiled tomatoes...

Okay, let's see...

 

[StarCraft_ZT]

Any Chinese members want to respond to this?

I find it very hard to believe. Anyone who has been to Shanghai or Beijing would not say that these people are living on $5k per year. Insanity.

In Shanghai, for urban residents, the disposable income per capital is $6,588 USD, which is the highest in China. Shanghai's rural disposable income per capital is $2,918.

As for the national wide urban residents, this number is $4,027 USD. For rural residents, it's $1,300.

Your $5k means gross income? I have to say, government takes much more money than her residents from the past economy boom.

 

[Götterdämmerung]

In Shanghai, for urban residents, the disposable income per capital is $6,588 USD, which is the highest in China. Shanghai's rural disposable income per capital is $2,918.

As for the national wide urban residents, this number is $4,027 USD. For rural residents, it's $1,300.

Your $5k means gross income? I have to say, government takes much more money than her residents from the past economy boom.

From my friends in China I know that only part of their income is declared and taxed, a large part is the so called hongbao, a.k.a. bonus they get at Chinese New Year, which is not part of the official income.

Chinese are quite frank in telling me about their income, so I was wondering how they can afford such a comparable living standard as we have in Germany despite having such a low income, so I asked them how they can make ends meet with their income. That's when they told me about the hongbao and their income suddenly doubles.

 

[atatwolf]

I already said this. China is paper tiger and tyranical government. Sooner or later it is gonna bust.

 

[StarCraft_ZT]

From my friends in China I know that only part of their income is declared and taxed, a large part is the so called hongbao, a.k.a. bonus they get at Chinese New Year, which is not part of the official income.

Chinese are quite frank in telling me about their income, so I was wondering how they can afford such a comparable living standard as we have in Germany despite having such a low income, so I asked them how they can make ends meet with their income. That's when they told me about the hongbao and their income suddenly doubles.

Yeah...hongbao. In most state owned companies, the bonus and allowances we get is much more than the basic income. For example, my friend who worked in Agricultural bank of China told me that, she has various bonus and benefits such as cooling, housing, traffic and even food or shopping card. Not only our New Year, when Dragon Boat Festival comes, she got extra salaries equal to per month level. the total amount could be x times than basic income. Such bonus are not official income and they are all exempted from calculating taxable income. But in private companies, things are not good.

 

[StarCraft_ZT]

I already said this. China is paper tiger and tyranical government. Sooner or later it is gonna bust.

Yes, when we are over, you guys will celebrate.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

I already said this. China is paper tiger and tyranical government. Sooner or later it is gonna bust.

Paper tiger such how we defeated turks and chased them out of their own homeland and out of mongolia step, virtually these defeated losers ran all the way to Anatolia and brought the local population there into submission and proclaim themseve are ruler and dominant race...tell us are you turk or Anatolian? if you have turkish blood, you have reason to hate us but if you're Anatolian...then just get lost...you're just loser of loser.

 

[Okemos]

Any Chinese members want to respond to this?

I find it very hard to believe. Anyone who has been to Shanghai or Beijing would not say that these people are living on $5k per year. Insanity.

2012 per capita disposable income data


Left side is urban residents while right side is rural residents. High lighted data are national average. Top 3 are Shanghai, Beijing and Zhejiang. Very proud of my hometown Zhejiang since Zhejiang is a province while Shanghai and Beijing are municipalities.

Also you have to understand that except for imported luxury goods, quality of life on $1 is pretty much very comparable to ￥1-2, not as official exchange rate of over 6 indicates. So if you never buy any imported luxury goods that are priced in dollar, you can live very comfortably on ￥10000 or about $1500 per month even in Shanghai or Beijing. Since I live in the U.S. now, from my experience, if I only have $2000 per month in U.S., I might as well live on ￥3000 or $400 in China.

That's the benefit of having large population and economy of scale. China's per capita income might never reach Switzerland since China has huge mixed rural and urban population, but I am pretty sure quality of life will match or even surpass if China's per capita income is only half of Switzerland.

Another factor is China spends more of its GDP on infrastructure and public utilities than probably any other country in the world. On paper, personal income is low, and personal consumption is dampened. But quality of life is not just personal consumption. Owning a car in the U.S. is a necessity for work, but in China, it's a luxury for weekend.

 

[eddieInUK]

Unemployment might be the key, lets forget about GDP growth, if a huge number of chinese lost their jobs, who can feed them ? Can fake GDP number satisfy their demand ? If China's economy really falls, the revolution will happen, see what happened in Middle East.