China’s State Media Finds Good News in Underwear

Liaoning itself provides a handy example. Just one year ago, Chinese officials said Liaoning had padded its growth statistics between 2011 and 2014. Even before that, it gave birth to one of China’s most closely watched unofficial economic gauges: the Li Keqiang Index.

Named after China’s current premier, the Li Keqiang Index got its start when Mr. Li was the top Communist Party official in the province. In 2007, when Mr. Li was party secretary of Liaoning, he told the United States ambassador to China that official figures were “man-made” and that he preferred to track the province’s economic trends through the province’s railway freight volume, electricity consumption and bank loans.

While the Li Keqiang Index has some grounding in economic nuts and bolts, the Liaoning Underwear Index was greeted by economists with a hefty dose of caution.

The Global Times cited data from the research arm of the online retailer JD.com, saying that men’s underwear sales had jumped 42 percent in 2017 and 32 percent so far this year. The rate of increase in underwear sales in Liaoning is greater than any other province, The Global Times wrote. But when asked whether JD.com had comparable figures for other provinces, Ling Cao, a spokeswoman for the company, said, “We don’t have figures from other provinces.”

The JD.com figures are also online only, meaning they don’t include underwear sales in brick-and-mortar stores.

Global Times staffers didn’t respond to calls and an email for comment.

Here’s the thing: Even if its methodology is uncertain, the Liaoning Underwear Index may be coincidentally right.

The province’s figures for industrial profits, production and consumption have been on the rise, say experts. Much of that growth may come from Chinese efforts to rekindle the economy, as it turns away from efforts to cut debt and begins approving the sort of big-cement, big-iron building and infrastructure programs that fueled so much of its growth following the global financial crisis of 2008.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/business/china-economy-underwear.html?partner=rss&emc=rss