China’s statistics bureau will announce the country’s gross domestic product numbers for the fourth quarter on Friday, along with other economic data. Here are five things to watch for clues about the health of the world’s largest economy by purchasing power parity.
Headline growth. There is little suspense about the inflation-adjusted fourth-quarter growth figure that China will report. President Xi Jinping told the World Economic Forum in Davos that China’s economy grew 6.7 per cent in 2016, squarely in the government's target range of 6.5 to 7 per cent and down only slightly from 6.9 per cent in 2015. The economy grew at 6.7 per cent in the year to September, and economists forecast the same figure for the fourth quarter.
Deflate-gate. After more than four straight years of grinding deflation, producer prices have come roaring back in recent months, fuelled by the rising cost of basic commodities such as coal, iron ore and steel. Faster price rises should show up as a higher GDP deflator, which the statistics bureau uses to adjust nominal growth for inflation. In theory, the GDP deflator is the broadest measure of price changes throughout the economy. But if the fourth-quarter deflator is significantly lower than the producer and consumer price indices, it will revive suspicions that the figure is used to manipulate the headline real growth figure. Understating inflation would enable authorities to report higher real growth.