O'Neill: A mixed bag for Chinese and US data

Goldman Sachs Asset Management chairman Jim O'Neill looks back over a week of mixed economic indicators from two of the world's leading powerhouse nations.

At the end of last week, Q2 Chinese GDP was published along with all the usual monthly data. The data was released against an unusual, albeit not unfamiliar, cacophony of noise about the accuracy of Chinese data which, in general terms, I find merely a sign of much Western bias. Of course, for a nation undergoing the dramatic change that China is, the accuracy of data needs to be questioned. However, I find it hard to see why that tendency is likely to have got worse, especially when we can compare what is published with so much of the reported evidence of other countries and companies t...