China not to issue statistical index assessing "Green GDP" in near future

Xinhua news
UPDATED: 14:02, June 15, 2006

China will not issue the statistical index assessing the "Green GDP" in the near future, a Chinese government official said.

As most of the items used to assess green GDP are untradable, it is difficult for those indices to be formulated, the China Securities Journal quoted a senior official with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) as saying.

For example, the environmental index is affected by regional factors to a large extent, said the official, whose name is not disclosed in the report.

In the 11th five-year program, the concept of "Green GDP" was highly stressed. The program not only sets goals of curbing pollution but also pledges to achieve economic development on an environmentally-friendly basis.

The research for building a scientific green GDP assessing framework is underway and is taking shape, said the official.

The NBS is designing the index in a way that takes into account people's satisfaction with their life, the environment and society, in contrast to a more traditional index that only evaluates economic development.

China's Gini Index exceeds the international warning line of 0.4 mainly due to the large gap between the income of urban and rural residents.

China's higher Gini Index should be calculated according to the country's particular conditions. Calculated individually, the Gini Index of the urban residents and the rural residents is still below 0.4, he said.

Gini Index is an index assessing the fairness level of the income distribution of a country.

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