China Suddenly Becomes World's Second Largest Economy

China has recently reevaluated the growth and the amount of its GDP over 2008. The nation’s counters changed the number of $4.4 trillion to $4.6 trillion. Chinese official said that the sector of services had been slightly underestimated during the previous calculation.
It seems to be a common technical recalculation at first sight. However, the new number changes the table of ranks in the world. As a result, the ruling party and the government of China announced that China comes second on the amount of its GDP.

It is not the first time when China remakes its economic statistics. A series of changes to revise the nation’s GDP for 2004 was conducted in 2005-2006. About $330 billion was added to initial calculations, which made up 17% of the nation’s GDP in 2004. The increase was also made in the field of services, which raised many questions with independent economists. Other recalculations followed afterwards, although they were not that significant. All of them were made to take China closer to its biggest dream – to catch up with the economy of Japan and leave it behind.

Indeed, the goal does not seem to be unreal for China. The economic crisis caused serious damage to the economy of Japan and hardly affected China. In accordance with the IMF’s October official forecast about the results of 2009, the GDPs of Japan and China were supposed to make up $4.9 trillion and $4.8 trillion respectively. China had to make only one little step to take the second place after the United States.

The sudden recalculation of the statistics data of 2008 gives China an opportunity to leave Japan behind already this year.