ON THE face of it,this should be a triumphant day for China. It reported that the economy grew by 6.9% final year, just a shade lower than 2014’s 7.3% pace. That is some achievement, and given the turmoil in emerging markets and the sheer size ($10 trillion) of the economy (6.9% growth now yields more additional output than 14.2% growth did back in 2007). But the plunging Chinese stockmarket,the global commodity collapse and downward pressure on the yuan have given rise to a prevalent view that reality is grimmer. If the data are so strong, why are so many people so down on China?The most obvious acknowledge is that no one much believes the numbers. China has long been suspected of massaging data to smooth its growth trend, and under-reporting GDP when overheated and over-reporting it during lulls. Judging by the eerie stability of key indicators recently,China’s statisticians appear to have been doing just that. In year-on-year terms, growth over the past six quarters has been 7.2%, or 7.2%,7%, 7%, or 6.9% and 6.8%. Such a tight clustering is improbable. Private surveys propose that growth was much lumpier final year,with the economy initially soft,...
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Source: economist.com