China has revised its annual GDP growth rate in 2008 to 9.6 percent from 9 percent, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). NBS Director Ma Jiantang publicized the results of the Second National Economic Census, and underscored the revision, at the State Council Information Office on December 25, 2009.

An increase of 1.34 trillion yuan

The NBS revised preliminary GDP statistics for 2008 based on the results of the Second National Economic Census in line with international practice, Ma said. The revised volume reached nearly 31.405 trillion yuan ($4.59 trillion), up 1.34 trillion yuan ($195.91 billion) from the initial figure, raising annual GDP growth in 2008 by 0.6 percentage points to 9.6 percent.

?Responding to a question about whether the revision will affect economic growth statistics for 2009, Peng Zhilong, Director General of the NBS Department of National Accounts, said the adjustment of the 2008 figure would mainly affect the volume of China's GDP in 2009, but had only insignificant implications for the growth rate.

A larger proportion for the tertiary industry

The tertiary industry, or services, has long been a weak sector in the national economy as well as an industry often poorly surveyed in statistics. In the Second National Economic Census, which started in February 2008, the NBS made notable changes to data for the sector.

The value added by the service industry was put at 13.134 trillion yuan ($1.92 trillion), an increase of 1.0853 trillion yuan ($158.7 billion) from previous statistics. Its proportion to China's total GDP was raised by 1.7 percentage points to 41.8 percent from the previous 40.1 percent.

The sector is responsible for more than 80 percent of the increased GDP of 1.34 trillion yuan. Revisions of data for the service industry were the most significant in both national economic censuses that China has conducted to date.

Thriving private firms

The Second National Economic Census showed that at the end of 2008, China had 143,000 state-owned enterprises in the industrial and service sectors, down 20 percent, or 36,000, from the figure at the end of 2004 as acquired in the First National Economic Census. The number of private companies, however, rose by 1.614 million to 3.596 million, up 81.4 percent.

At the end of 2008, state-owned enterprises accounted for 23 percent of the total assets in the industrial and service sectors, down 8.1 percentage points from the end of 2004. The ratio for joint equity firms was 28.7 percent, up 7.7 percentage points. That for private companies amounted to 12.3 percent, an increase of 3.3 percentage points.

A comparison of the data of the two national economic censuses indicates that the proportion of state-owned enterprises is declining, while non-state-owned firms are on the rise, Ma said. This was a strong testament to the great headway the private sector had made over the past four years, he said, adding that the statistics did not support the widespread presumption that state-owned enterprises are expanding, forcing the private sector to shrink.

Energy production, consumption surveyed

The Second National Economic Census surveyed China's energy production and consumption as well, the NBS said. China produced 2.65 billion tons of coal equivalent in primary energy in 2008, including 2.8 billion tons of coal, 195.05 million tons of crude oil and 80.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Based on the results of the energy consumption survey of the Second National Economic Census, the NBS revised China's energy consumption in 2008 to 2.91 billion tons of coal equivalent, an increase of 2.12 percent from the previously disclosed figure. It also made revisions to energy consumption data from 2005 to 2007. According to revised energy consumption and GDP figures, China's energy consumption per-unit GDP in 2008 dropped by 5.2 percent from the previous year, and by 12.45 percent from 2005.