China’s reported number can be very different from reality.
What numbers can you really rely on?
I would assume the number reported today but happened a year ago is more accurate than the number reported last year.
For example, for 2024 Jan to Aug, fixed asset investment rose by 3.4% to 32.94 trillion rmb.
While you need to believe in the current number, it’s more acceptable to me to assume the number for 2023 Jan to Aug is 31.86 trillion rmb [32.94 / (1+ 3.4%)].
Then you can compare with last year’s reported number, and see the discrepancy is -3% – last year’s reported number is 3% higher than current year implied number.
If you do the same for all month since December 2021, you can see the discrepancy grew from 0% for Dec 2021 to -15% for Dec 2022 and now back to only -3% for Aug 2023.
Indeed, the discrepancy has been low for May 2023 to Aug 2023: -4%, -3%, -3%, -3%, which seems to be a good thing.