Chinese Business Etiquette
The socialist market economy of the People's Republic of China is the world's second largest economy by nominal GDP and the world's largest economy by purchasing power parity according to the International Monetary Fund(IMF), although China's National Bureau of Statistics denies the latter assessment.
Until 2015, China was the world's fastest-growing major economy, with growth rates averaging 10% over 30 years. Due to historical and political facts of China's developing economy, China's public sector accounts for a bigger share of the national economy than the burgeoning private sector.
On a per capita income basis, China ranked 71st by GDP (nominal) and 78th by GDP (PPP) per capita in 2016, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The country has an estimated $23 trillion worth of natural resources, 90% of which are coal and rare earth metals. China also has the world's largest total banking sector assets of $39.9 trillion (252 trillion CNY) with $26.54 trillion in total deposits.
China is the world's largest manufacturing economy and exporter of goods. China is also the world's fastest-growing consumer market and second-largest importer of goods. China is a net importer of services products. China is the largest trading nation in the world and plays a prominent role in international trade and has increasingly engaged in trade organizations and treaties in recent years. China became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001. China also has free trade agreements with several nations, including ASEAN, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Korea and Switzerland. The provinces in the coastal regions of China tend to be more industrialized, while regions in the hinterland are less developed. As China's economic importance has grown, so has attention to the structure and health of the economy.
To avoid the long-term socioeconomic cost of environmental pollution in China, it has been suggested by Nicholas Stern and Fergus Green of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment that the economy of China be shifted to more advanced industrial development with high-tech, low carbon emissions with better allocation of national resources to innovation and R&D for sustainable economic growth in order to reduce the impact of China's heavy industry. This is in accord with the planning goals of the central government. Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream is described as achieving the "Two 100s": the material goal of China becoming a "moderately well-off society" by 2021, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party and the modernization goal of China becoming a fully developed nation by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.
The internationalization of the Chinese economy continues to affect the standardized economic forecast officially launched in China by the Purchasing Managers Index in 2005. As China's economy grows, so does China's Renminbi, which undergoes the process needed for its internationalization. China initiated the founding of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015. The economic development of Shenzhen is dubbed as the next Silicon Valley in the world.
In recent years, government claimed growth numbers have come under increased scrutiny, with financial and economic observers claiming the government has been inflating its economic output. In 2015, one US-focused financial commentator suggested China's official figures for GDP growth might be double the actual rate. Examples include the provincial government in Liaoning publicly admitting that the government had been overstating GDP by 20% when publishing its economic data from 2011 to 2014. Tianjin's trillion yuan GDP claim for 2016, was in fact a third lower, at 665 billion yuan ($103 billion). However, a more detailed and scholarly approach in 2017 pointed in the opposite direction. Regarding the credibility of official data, China's premier has been quoted as saying the GDP numbers are "man-made" and unreliable and should be used "for reference only".