China increases economy's official size

The government announced a sharp increase in the official size of the economy December 20, revising the GDP figure for 2004 upwards by US$285 billion. According to the new figures, released by the National Bureau of Statistics, output grew by 16.8% last year, nearly twice the amount reported earlier. The revision came following a survey meant to gather more accurate data on China's emerging service industries, which traditional statistics-gathering didn't cover. Based on the new figures, China has replaced Italy as the world's sixth largest economy