China To Issue GDP Figures Under New Mechanism From 2020

China will revise its historical regional GDP data under a unified accounting mechanism from early next year, the National Bureau of Statistics said, amidst the continued slowdown of the world’s second largest economy. The Chinese economy grew at an annual pace of 6.0 per cent in the July-September quarter, the slowest growth since 1992. The slowdown is exacerbated by the ongoing trade war between the US and China.

In November this year, China revised its 2018 GDP, saying the economy was 2.1 per cent bigger than earlier estimated, revising the gross domestic product (GDP) for 2018 to 91.93 trillion yuan (USD 13.1 trillion) from USD 12.8 trillion. A new GDP data under a unified accounting mechanism to be introduced early next year, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the National Bureau of Statistic (NBS) as reporting on Friday.

The new mechanism will unify the standards and procedures for calculating national and local GDP numbers which had been calculated under different accounting methods adopted by local and national statistics authorities since 1985, the bureau said. The reform is expected to close the current discrepancy between national and regional figures, improving data quality while enhancing the credibility of the government statistics, it said.

To ensure data comparability, the country will also revise historical local GDP figures and publish them in 2020, the bureau said. As the economic activities of some government institutions are only reflected in the national GDP, the combined regional number will be slightly lower than the national amount, it said. China and the US have been locked in a longstanding trade war that has threatened to roil the global economy.

The US, the world’s biggest economy, has imposed tariffs on USD 250 billion of Chinese goods, having accused the country of unfair trade practices. Beijing hit back with duties on USD 110 billion of US goods, blaming the US for starting “the largest trade war in economic history”. The IMF has warned that a full-blown trade war would weaken the global economy.