China: Don’t Count On (Retail) Statistics

Another day, another set of statistical gymnastics. Last time it was foreign investment figures (with or without the financial services sector), before that it was the trade surplus (or capital in-flows disguised as trade), the we had the GDP restatement and miscounting of bad debt by Ernst and Young. Now it is retail sales – with thanks to Access Asia’s endless research (“China’s Retail Sales…What Exactly Are They?”), which is reproduced from their latest newsletter, below: