GDP will now rely on single-quarter data

China will calculate its quarterly GDP based on single-quarter data in an effort to measure short-term economic fluctuation more accurately, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

Beginning with the third quarter of this year, the NBS will figure the quarterly GDP based on raw data of that particular quarter, as opposed to the previous method in which statisticians used cumulative data.

For example, under the old system, statisticians would arrive at the third-quarter GDP by subtracting the cumulative GDP of the first half of the year from the cumulative GDP of the first nine months. Now they will directly collect primary data of the third quarter to get the result.