(Good to know all that cheap labor is helping someone's economy.)
20/12/2005 03h50
BEIJING (AFP) - China revised its 2004 gross domestic product (GDP) up by 283.6 billion dollars or 16.8 percent, an unprecedented move that analysts say could re-write the world's economic pecking order.
"Preliminary estimation using results from the economic census indicates that China's GDP for the year 2004 was 15,987.8 billion yuan (1.97 trillion dollars) at current prices, representing an increase of 2,300 billion yuan (283.6 billion dollars) or 16.8 percent over the preliminary estimated figure using regular annual statistical data," the National Bureau of Statistics said.
Anticipating the figures, analysts had said the huge statistical revision could see the world's fastest growing major economy leapfrog Italy, France and Britain to be officially recognized as the world's fourth-biggest.
However, Chinese officials said the new figures would only mean that China overtook Italy to rank sixth in the world, although the revision itself and its size shows how difficult such calculations must be. The generally accepted rankings are the United States first and way out in front, followed by Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Italy.
<
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/051220032028.0xds28nz.html>
(more at link above)