Twice a year in China the Bureau of Statistics releases the country’s GDP, which when printed out and balled up is extremely useful as an office basketball.
This may not be strictly maritime business, but the mainland’s economic performance has a direct result on trade. And the Bureau of Stats seldom disappoints, at least from a comedic perspective.
Those who actually depend on the authenticity of China’s official GDP figure may not be chortling so hard, but it is unlikely any such people exist.
For the first six months of 2010, China recorded a gross domestic product growth of 11.1 percent, according to the bureau. That’s pretty impressive and with all the stimulus packages injected into the economy, it seems perfectly plausible.
Until one considers that none of the 31 provinces and autonomous regions achieved a GDP of less than 12 percent. One of them even recorded 18 percent growth.
It has been a long running problem for Beijing where officials in the provinces routinely pad the stats to look good and get promoted, shortcut regulations or give favours to business that are returned later.
And it is also common knowledge outside China, which makes one suspect that the problem is so colossal that Beijing is simply incapable of stamping it out.
China is trying to crack down on endemic corruption but it has a long way to go. In fact, for many businesses in many industry sectors, playing fair will merely put them at a competitive disadvantage while everyone else cuts corners or makes the most of the “special” guangxi relationships that grease the wheels of commerce.