Growth understated in post Sars surge

China's economy grew 9.1 per cent in the
third quarter of the year compared with a rise
of just 6.7 per cent in the Sars-affected Aprilto-
June period. GDP growth for the first nine
months reached 8.5 per cent. A growing consensus
of economists, however, believe that
official statistics could be understating
growth by several percentage points, reported
the Financial Times. Jonathan Anderson,
of UBS in Hong Kong, said that the bank's
internal monitoring systems showed third
quarter growth running at 14.2 per cent.
Growth would be close to 11 per cent for the
full year once other factors such as the slower
moving rural economy were included.
Andy Xie, of Morgan Stanley in Hong
Kong, highlighted a 30 per cent growth in
exports, property and cars sectors that
together accounted for about 30 per cent of
GDP. "One third of the economy growing by
about 30 per cent that's about 10 per cent
already," he said. Power consumption, another
independent tracker of economic activity,
was up 15 per cent on 2002 levels. China's
expansion has been driven primarily by
fixed-asset investments, which rose 30.5 per
cent to Yn3,400bn in the first nine months �
a level of activity not seen since the overheating
of the economy in 1994.