Questioning the reliability of China's statistics has become standard operating procedure among US and European economists, who like to point out what they characterize as discrepancies, for instance in the conflict between China's reported power generation and its economic growth. This leads many to wonder whether China's economy is really recovering.
Now China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has begun to point out that China is not alone in producing wayward-looking statistics, and that conflicts also occur in economic statistics produced by the US, Europe, and Japan.
"Look at recent stats from the US, Europe, and Japan, and you find conflicts are common and occur frequently," says a recent NBS report.
Take conflict between industrial growth and power consumption growth numbers. In June and July last year, industrial production in the US dropped 0.1% and 0.7%, respectively, year on year, but power generation during the same period was seen to grow 2.7% and 2.3%. In January and March this year, industrial production in euro zone dropped 2% and 1.3%, month on month, but power consumption grew 4.1% and 1.1%. In the 12 months of 2008, month-on-month industrial production contradicted power consumption rates in 8 of them. Between July and September last year, Japan's industrial production dropped 0.2%, 5.7%, and 4%, but its power consumption rose 6.5%, 0%, and 0.6%.
According to US and European statistics, retail sales also contradicted personal consumption disbursement. In June last year, personal consumption in the US grew 0.5%, month on month, while total retail sales dropped 0.2%. In November last year, personal consumption fell 0.7% while retail sales rose 0.4%. In the third quarter of last year, personal consumption in euro zone grew 0.1%, year on year, but the retail sales dropped 0.5%.
US, European and Japanese statistics all show a contradiction between industrial production growth and unemployment rates. Between March and May this year, Japan's figures say industrial production grew 1.6%, 5.9%, and 5.9%, month on month, but its unemployment rates during those months were 4.8%, 5%, and 5.2%, growing month by month. In March, July, and October, Japan's month-on-month industrial production decreased while its unemployment ratio dropped. In June and October last year, industrial production in the US grew 0.1% and 1.3%, month on month, while its unemployment rose 0.1 and 0.4 percentage points over the previous month. In April last year, industrial production in the euro zone grew 0.8% month on month, but unemployment rose from 7.2% in the previous month to 7.3%.
The NBS did not claim the contradictions among these statistics was simply attributable to the quality of the statistics. Instead, it would be useful for people to think of the new problems behind these figures.
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