Monitor | Province-sized hole in GDP figures from Beijing is likely to be hiding good news
The imperfections in the way the mainland's GDP figures are put together are likely to disguise how well consumer demand is doing
There has been a lot of talk recently in the mainland media about China's missing province.
It's not that someone has accidentally mislaid Gansu. The focus of attention is a province-sized hole in the mainland's national accounts.
According to Beijing's National Bureau of Statistics, the mainland's gross domestic product last year, measured by the net output of each sector, was a mighty 51.9 trillion yuan (HK$63.9 trillion).
But if you take the output figures compiled by the mainland's 31 different provinces and add them together, you come up with an even mightier 57.6 trillion yuan.
That is a discrepancy of 5.7 trillion yuan, or roughly the economic output of Guangdong, hence the talk of a missing province.
