China to offer more economic data

BEIJING - China's official statistics institutions plan to publish more economic indices to better show the condition of production activities in both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing (CFLP) are expected to jointly release these new indicators on their websites in the coming months this year, although the exact publishing date has not yet been confirmed.

Sheng Laiyun, a spokesman of the NBS said on Tuesday in a press conference in Beijing that big companies will report data directly to the bureau starting this year, providing more basic statistics and improve the accuracy of the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a main gauge showing production activities in the manufacturing sector.

Statistics from the financial sector, such as the commercial banks’ operational data, is likely to be shown by a sub-index of the non-manufacturing sector’s PMI, the Deputy Head of the CFLP - Cai Jin said.

These two institutions will jointly release the country's January PMI on Wednesday.