Wednesday, December 14, 2005

"By Far the Best Economic System in Human History"

WSJ reported that China, after finishing a national census on its economic activities, has discovered that "its service sector, including businesses like restaurants, banks and shops, is a far more sizable part of the economy than previously understood."

Quoting a local paper, the South China Morning which broke the news a day before, the story said that as China plans to annouce revised GDP figures next week, " the planned revision could show services as a portion of GDP were underreported last year by as much as $300 billion, or nearly 20% of last year's total economic output." Read the story here.

Only a few weeks ago, Professor Steven N.S. Cheung in a conference in his honor, said:
"China has the Best Economic System I know in Human History." Yes, No, comments are open though.

By the way, and to his credit, Professor Cheung has mentioned in his Chinese writings a few years back that China's GDP is seriously underestimated. And he suggested back then that the amount of waste a country produces is a better barometer of an economy's vitality than GDP figures.

And finally, this is one of the latest academic papers on China's GDP figures.

1 comment:

Dan Vořechovský said...

I do not understand the Professor´s sentence. I perceive it as out of context. How does he think it? In which way is it "the best economic system"? What are the features that makes it the best one?