The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday that China's current price indices have reached the standard of developed countries, taking into account varieties and areas surveyed and frequencies of weighting adjustments.

The consumer price index (CPI) comes from surveys of 700 varieties, more than 1.2 million prices and 550 cities and counties, even more than those of Japan, Britain and the United States, it said in a public notice.

Another example is the producer's price index (PPI) for manufactured products, which covers nearly 50,000 industrial enterprises, compared with 30,000 in the United States, which is already the most among industrialized countries.

China has developed a set of fairly complete price indices ranging from the production and construction to distribution and consumption sectors, including the CPI and PPI, as well as those measuring the prices of agricultural production, fixed-asset investment, real estate and retail sales.

The NBS said it raised the quality of its data through many years of overseas exchanges and cooperation and ensured their accuracy in line with the characteristics of China's economic expansion and consumer spending.

(Xinhua News Agency June 16, 2004)