China’s recovery: Is it for real?
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Investors don’t need to answer or even be interested in those philosophical questions. But they do need to consider the possibility that China’s huge acceleration in its growth rate is merely an artifact of the way the country keeps its books.
Economic data is often messy and confusing. The data itself often has measurement error. The actual aim is often not exactly what people think. And the data is often delayed so it provides a view of the situation, not today, but in the past and guesses must be made about what that says about today and the future.
And on top of those factors many countries feel significant internal pressures to report numbers that make the current economy look good. This is just another factor investor must consider when looking to make investments and evaluate economic conditions.
It seems to me the Chinese recovery does look real. How strong the economy will be 6 months from now is less clear but right now things look positive to me.
Related: posts on economic data – What Do Unemployment Stats Mean? – China Manufacturing Expands for the Fourth Straight Month (Jun 2009) – A Bull on China
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[...] 2008 China’s GDP was up 9.6%. The economy there obviously continues to do amazing things. Also there are plenty of signs of crazy spending building huge amounts of housing and office space [...]