Brief Introduction

 Statistics on national accounts include mainly four components, namely, gross domestic product, input-output table, flow of fund table and balance of payments.

I. Gross Domestic Product

Data on GDP are calculated by the Department of National Accounts of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) with various approaches in the light of the features of various sectors, various expenditure structures and the data sources. The gross national product can be calculated on the base of GDP and the net factor income from abroad.

Data on gross domestic product and related indicators of the most recent year published in the yearbook are not final and are subject to changes when more information from financial data and administrative records are available. When it happens to be a census year, data of GDP of the past years may also be revised. In 2005, the GDP figures for the year 2004 were recompiled in accordance with the Programme of Compilation of GDP and National Accounts for the Year of Economic Census and with the result from the first economic census. GDP data for earlier years were revised by trend deviation approach (trend of historical data were first calculated with data from the census, which was further revised by the ratio between the value of historical data and the trend of historical data, resulting in revised historical data series.). Data for 2005 are compiled on the basis of revised 2004 data.

Regional data in this yearbook are prepared according to the data of national accounts provided by the statistical bureaus of the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government. The sum of the regional data is not equal to the national total due to the decentralized accounting approach.

II. Input-output Table

Reflecting the sources of the input into, and the utilization of the output from production by various industries of the national economy, the input-output table is used to reveal, in quantitative terms, the interrelated and mutually dependent economic and technological relations between industries.The input-output table of China is compiled by the Department of National Accounts of the National Bureau of Statistics.

III. Flow of Fund Table

Similar to internationally accepted format, the flow of fund table of China constitutes a matrix of institutional sectors by transactions. Items of transactions are expressed as row headings representing forms of distribution and methods of financing. Institutional sectors are shown as column headings, grouped by the characteristics of the transactors. There are 5 groups of institutional sectors in the flow of fund table, namely, non-financial corporations, financial institutions, governments, households, and the rest of the world. Under each sector there are 2 headings: source of fund and utilization of fund. The current flow of fund table is composed of two parts: the first part is the physical (real) transactions compiled by the Department of National Accounts of the National Bureau of Statistics, and the second part is the financial transactions compiled by the Survey and Statistics Department of the People’s Bank of China.

IV. Balance of Payments

The balance of payment table is compiled by the Balance of Payment Department of the State Administration of Foreign Exchanges in accordance with the 5^th edition of the Manual on Balance of Payment prepared by the International Monetary Fund.