OPINION> Commentary
Numbers not the full truth
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-31 07:29

The statistics bureau authorities should reflect on the public complaint against the superficial economic figures they released, says an article in Yangtze Evening News. The following is an excerpt:

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday that Chinese urban workers' per capita salary averaged 12,964 yuan ($1,899) in the first half of this year, up 18 percent year-on-year.

But the public do not accept the figures. The reasons and social background seem much more complicated.

Of course, the figures can hardly be theoretically wrong. However, they are meaningless numbers as they are close to neither of the two sides of truth. Most of the workers earn much less than the number while the very few entrepreneurial managers at high levels earn millions.

Ma Mingzhe, chairman of Ping An Insurance with his widely questioned 66 million yuan yearly pay, can take along more than 4,000 penniless people to "earn" the same number as the NBS's. To put it in another way, the number ignores the disparity between a single person and the 4,000 who may simply be angry about the beautiful life theoretically granted by the number.

Truly, the decision-makers need such numbers to take into account the whole macroeconomic situation, but, at the same time, relevant departments should also offer the public with something more specific and practical about people's lives.

(China Daily 07/31/2008 page8)