China Releases Economic Census Results

China has revised its gross domestic product growth rate for 2008 to 9.6 percent from 9 percent according to the results of its fresh released national economic census.

Zhang Cheng has more:

The revision came after China finished its second national economic census to gather basic information of all industrial and service-sector entities active in 2008.

Peng Zhilong, an official with the National Bureau of Statistics, says the revised data will be used for this year's estimation of economic growth as a comparison base, but will have little impact on 2009's number.

"The main impact by using the new data will be seen in the overall GDP total in 2009, but not the speed of growth."

The bureau also says China has revised its 2008 unit GDP energy consumption cut to 5.2 percent from the previous 4.6 percent.

National energy consumption totaled an equivalent of about 2.9 billion tonnes of standard coal, up more than two percent from the previous data.

Results show that as of the end of 2008, China had more than seven million legal entities in the secondary and tertiary industries, up nearly 37 percent compared with that at the end of 2004, when the first national economic census was finished.

The total assets of enterprises have grown more than 110 percent from that in 2004.

The census shows China has seen nearly an 80 percent rise in the number of private enterprises from 2004 to 2008.

The number of state-owned enterprises dropped 36 thousand, or 20 percent to about 140 thousand from 2004.

Ma Jiantang, Director of the NBS says the figure indicates that non-public economy is playing a more important role in China's economy.

"It shows that China's private enterprises or non-public enterprises have been developing in recent years. They have become an important constituent of China's economy, playing a more and more important role in creating jobs."

In addition, Ma Jiantang says the census results show that the income gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

"Since China launched the Reform and Opening-up policy, Chinese people's average incomes are increasing. Meanwhile, the income growth of different groups varies. For example, the income of rural residents increases at a slow rate."

The census is conducted every five years and the latest one started in October of last year, aiming to help form the basis of the social and economic development blueprint for the 12th Five-Year Plan.

Zhang Cheng, CRI News.