The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is in the process of developing two yearly and quarterly GDP (gross domestic product) accounting schemes to calculate GDP in the years after 2006 during which an economic census will not be carried out, said Xu Xianchun, director-general of the NBS' Department of National Economic Accounts, according to a report by Shanghai Securities News on Tuesday.

The first national economic census, which formally began on December 31, 2004, was designed to draw an economic panorama of the country's fast-expanding secondary and tertiary industries and establish a database of all economic sectors.

The new yearly GDP accounting scheme will be divided into 94 categories based on current industries, and the quarterly scheme will cover 19 major industries.

The first census indicated that China's GDP in 2004 was 15.99 trillion yuan (about US$2 trillion), 2.3 trillion yuan (US$285 billion) more than previously thought, up 16.8 percent. In view of this, last December the NBS accordingly revised earlier GDP figures since 1993.

According to an official from the Economic Census Office, different statistic resources were what resulted in the huge difference between the yearly report and the economic census.

Li Deshui, director of the NBS, also pointed out at a recent press conference that the difference was as a result of an oversight in statistical data concerning the tertiary industry in regular surveys.

Li said that before 1980, the national accounting system under the planned economic system was based on the material production system (MPS). But since the 1990s, China has been gradually integrating with the internationally applied System of National Accounts (SNA).

Xu said the NBS will publicize the schemes once they have been finalized.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has encouraged all member countries to improve the transparency of statistics, which is what China, after joining IMF's General Data Distribution System (GDDS), aims to do with the new accounting schemes, Xu added.

(China.org.cn by Wang Qian, February 16, 2006)