Assessing Sources and Limits of Chinese Economic Data

Summary

This discussion addresses the difficulty of finding dependable Chinese economic indicators for strategy research. The question lists areas of interest including credit, materials, durable goods, GDP composition, government spending, housing, and personal income. The accepted reply points readers toward a range of official and international statistical sources, alongside outside estimates and charts concerning areas such as copper, autos, and housing.

The central research lesson is that alternative sources may disagree and estimates can be revised, so a researcher should treat any single series cautiously. The reply also argues that policy choices can complicate forecasts based on ordinary market assumptions, and offers no systematic method for reconciling conflicting data or validating one source against another. The links and charts are referenced but not reproduced with their underlying figures or dates, limiting what can be assessed from this text alone. It serves as a starting point for source discovery and a warning about uncertainty, not as a current data guide or a forecast of China’s economy.

Key ideas

• The discussion identifies credit, production, demand, GDP composition, spending, housing, and income as potential research needs.
• It points to official, international, and outside sources for Chinese economic statistics.
• Alternative estimates may disagree or change, so individual data series require scrutiny.
• Policy decisions can make economic outcomes difficult to infer from market forces alone.
• The referenced links and charts are not detailed enough here to compare or validate their data.

Tags

# Reliable Economic Data on China


# Reliable Economic Data on China












Trying to develop a new strategy, but I need to find reliable economic data on China. It's well known that the official figures there don't tell you everything (to put it nicely), so I was wondering if anyone knows of reliable sources on key macro data such as:

- Credit

- Raw materials production and demand (e.g. copper)

- Durable goods production and demand (e.g. cars)

- GDP allocation (e.g. spending on infrastructure; US exports as a % of GDP)

- Government spending

- Housing

- Personal income

## Answer by bill_080 (score 6, accepted)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/1191

That's the problem with China. The official data is nonsense, and the estimates of outsiders can change without warning. Here are some links:

China Official Stats 1

China Official Stats 2

China Official Stats 3

More China Stats

OECD

CIA

World Bank 1

World Bank 2

IMF

CMF

Changing Stats 1

Changing Stats 2

Changing Stats 3 - Copper

Changing Stats 4 - Copper

Here are some old charts that might help:

I've been trying to track China for a long time. The first problem is the lack of real data, but the second problem is that China is a communist country. They don't have to bow to market forces, and they can do some really bizarre things (long term and short term). They have a lot of situations/policies that aren't sustainable, but it's hard to even guess which path(s) they may take to keep things calm. The only thing an outsider can do is watch and wait.

Edit 1 =================================================

Oops, I forgot some links and one image:

Autos 1

Autos 2

Housing 1

Housing 2

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This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.