World Bank Says China Not So Big Economically

China's economy just shrank by about 40% -- at least statistically, according to a reworking of global economic statistics coordinated by the World Bank.

The World Bank group looked at prices in 146 countries to come up with more accurate rankings of economic might, poverty and wealth. It is difficult to compare countries internationally because they have different currencies and because global products are priced differently in different nations. As any traveler can testify, a bottle of Coca-Cola costs more in Europe than the U.S.

The World Bank tried to put together a global set of statistics for the year 2005. When national economic output was converted into dollars at the prevailing exchange rate, the U.S. has 28% of global gross domestic output. A better measure, many economists figure, is to compare the cost of commodities and services in different nations. By that measure, the U.S. share was just 23%

As the report by the 'International Comparison Program' explained, if a Big Mac costs $4 in the U.S. and 4.80 euros in France, than the conversion rate is 1.20 euros to the U.S. dollar -- no matter what the official exchange rate is. In other words, for every euro that the French spend on Big Macs in Paris -- at least those French who would admit to such purchases -- Americans would spend 83 cents for the same amount of Big Macs.

The comparison program looked at a lot more than hamburgers; it collected data on the prices of more than 1,000 goods and services in 100 countries to come up with a 'purchasing power parity' figure for converting national currencies into dollars.

The recalculation especially affected China because this is the first time the country has been surveyed in a rigorous fashion for price data. Previous estimates of China's purchase power parity were based on a comparison of 1986 prices between China and the U.S., the World Bank said, even though that didn't take into account changes in prices since then.

Under the old calculation, China had a GDP of $8.8 trillion, about 15% of global GDP of $59 trillion. According to the new calculation, China's economy shrank by 40% to $5.3 trillion, which is about 10% of global GDP of $55 trillion.

In this survey, China submitted price statistics from 11 cities, which still leaves out rural areas -- and so may not be as accurate as possible. The report said it didn't believe the estimate of China's GDP was off by more than 5%.

Under the new calculations, India had 4% of global GDP, Russia had 3%. Their shares of global output were higher than they would be when measuring at market rates. The reverse was often the case in rich industrialized nations.

The International Comparison Program used purchasing power parity statistics to rank national wealth and poverty. The nations with the highest GDP per capita are Luxembourg, Qatar, Norway, Burnei Darussalam and Kuwait, all of which are tiny economies. By looking at individual consumption, the list changes somewhat. The richest are Luxembourg, U.S., Iceland, Britain and Norway.

The poorest nation on earth, as ranked by GDP per capita, is the Democratic Republic of Congo, followed by Liberia, Burundi, Zimbabwe and Guinea-Bissau.

A traveler's advisory: according to the new stats, the cheapest places to buy things are Tajikistan, followed by Ethiopia, Gambia, Kyrgyz Republic and Bolivia. The most expensive are Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and Ireland.

根据世界银行(World Bank)公布的新版全球经济统计报告，中国经济至少从统计角度而言缩水了大约40%。

为了对各国经济实力和贫富状况作出更准确的评价，世界银行在全球146个国家进行了物价采样。因为各国使用不同的货币，加之各国商品的定价不同，因此对全球各国经济进行横向比较难度很大。恐怕不少旅客就知道，一罐可口可乐在欧洲的售价要比美国贵。

而这一次世界银行试图采用覆盖全球的统计数据来修订2005年的报告。当采用美元现行汇率计算美国的经济产出时，美国国内生产总值(GDP)占全球GDP的比重为28%。但若按许多经济学家认为的另一种更好的标准来衡量，也就是用不同国家的商品及服务成本来衡量的话，美国GDP所占比重仅有23%。

这份由“国际比较项目”(International Comparison Program)编写的报告解释称，如果一份巨无霸汉堡在美国卖4美元，而在法国卖4.8欧元，那无论官方汇率如何，1美元就相当于1.2欧元。换句话说，在法国用1欧元能买到的巨无霸（至少在法国如此），在美国只用花83美分就可以买到。

而国际对比项目所统计的商品可远远不止汉堡包。为了将各国货币按照“购买力平价”(purchasing power parity)换算成美元，这个项目统计了全球100个国家超过1,000种商品和服务的价格。

而中国经济在这次修订中受到的影响尤其大，原因在于此乃首次在中国进行严格的物价采样。而据世界银行称，过去一直是根据1986年时的中美物价对比来推算中国的购买力平价，而且自打那时起就从来没有将物价变化考虑在内。

广告按照旧的计算方式，中国的GDP有8.8万亿美元，占全球59万亿美元GDP的15%。而按照新版计算方式，中国经济锐减四成，只剩下5.3万亿美元，占重新计算后55万亿美元全球GDP的大约10%。

这份报告对中国经济的计算是以中国提交的11座城市物价统计为基础，广大农村地区的物价并未包括在内，因此可能仍然不够准确。而报告称，相信对中国GDP的估算偏差不会超过5%。

在新版报告中，印度和俄罗斯经济占全球比重分别为4%和3%，均高于较按照市场汇率计算的数值。而富裕的工业化国家的情况往往相反。

国际对比项目还用购买力平价来对各国的贫富进行排队。人均GDP最高的国家依次是卢森堡、卡塔尔、挪威、文莱和科威特，而这些国家都是些小国。若以人均消费来计算的排名就有些不同了，位列首位的仍是卢森堡，随后是美国、冰岛、英国和挪威。

人均GDP最低的国家是刚果民主共和国，利比亚、布隆迪、津巴布韦和几内亚比绍紧随其后。

这里要给所有出国旅行者提供一个信息：按照新版报告，全球物价最便宜的国家是塔吉克斯坦，然后是埃塞俄比亚、冈比亚、吉尔吉斯共和国和玻利维亚。而物价最高的国家是冰岛，随后是丹麦、瑞士、挪威和爱尔兰。

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