Faster service growth

The recent upward revision of the country's growth figures indicates that the service sector has been expanding more rapidly than originally thought.

This is good news for policymakers, who have been eager to boost the development of the sector. But if we consider their stated goal of raising the sector's share of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 3 percentage points between 2006 and 2010, the slight increases recorded in the past two years provide very small comfort.

The National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday revised the GDP growth rates in 2006 and 2007 by 0.5 percentage points to 11.6 percent and 11.9 percent respectively. The growth rates for agriculture and industry remained unchanged, which means the revisions basically reflect the level to which analysts have underestimated the expansion of the service sector.