Experts say World Bank overrates scale of China's economy   

专家：“中国经济规模2014年赶超美国”言过其实

世界银行下属的国际比较项目(ICP)日前发布数据显示，按照购买力平价(PPP)计算，2011年，中国经济规模已经达到美国经济的近九成。参考2011年到2014年中美两国的经济增速，有机构预计，在2014年中国经济的体量就将超过美国。针对上述预测，中国国家统计局有关专家接受中新社记者采访时表示，由于研究方法上仍存在问题，该项研究不够完善，使用PPP得出的GDP总量和人均水平有明显高估。 [查看全文]

Beijing (CNS) – Some experts in China agree that recent research by the World Bank has overestimated China's economy.

The World Bank's report said that China is close to overtaking the US as the world's largest economy this year.

Released by the World Bank's International Comparison Program (ICP), the findings assessed economies based on purchasing power parity (PPP) and said China's GDP was 13.5 trillion dollars, nearly 87 percent of the US GDP, and 10.4 percent of the world's in 2011.

An unnamed expert at China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said that because defects exist in the PPP measurement, China's GDP has been overestimated. "According to the exchange rate in 2011, China's GDP was 7.3 trillion dollars."

The data released by the ICP shows that China's price level was 70 percent of the world average, and 54 percent of the US's, the expert added. "The underestimation of the price level leads to the overvaluation of the yuan's purchasing power and China's GDP size," he said.

Another expert said that the NBS had reservations about the method used and the result: "We take it as an academic calculation rather than an authoritative result."

Qiu Dong, an economics professor at Beijing Normal University, said China's economy calculated with PPP measurement is larger than that calculated with the Atlas method, narrowing the development gap between China and the US.

"Even though China is ranked as the world's largest economy under PPP measurement, it doesn't change the fact that China is lagging behind developed economies," Qiu said.