China delayed the release of key economic data to avoid distraction amid the Communist Party Congress, not to conceal data, analysts say

China wants the world to focus on the Communist Party Congress where President Xi Jinping (front) is expected to secure a third term in office.

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

• China delayed the release of key economic data, including third-quarter GDP, scheduled for this week.
• This sparked speculation the data is so bad China doesn't want to release it amid a national congress.
• Analysts say China is delaying the release so the focus is all on the Communist Party meeting.

A delay in releasing key Chinese economic data — which coincided with a once-in-five years Communist Party meeting — has sparked speculation that Beijing is deliberately concealing the numbers over how bad they look. 

China delayed the release of key economic data which was scheduled to go out this week, amid the all-important 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, where President Xi Jinping is poised to secure an unprecedented third term in power.

The postponement of the data — GDP in particular — has raised speculation that the numbers are deliberately being hidden. But that's probably not the case, according to analysts.

Rather, China just wants everyone to focus on the political meeting and not on its economy.

"I don't think the delay was due to bad data," Bo Zhuang, a senior sovereign analyst with Boston-based investment management firm Loomis Sayles, told Insider. "Beijing just wants everyone and the media coverage to focus on the Congress, not on economic data."

China's third-quarter GDP data was slated to be released at 10 a.m. today, but has been delayed, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The release of a slate of other statistics from industrial production, fixed asset investment, to real estate sales has also been postponed. 

While delays in monthly statistical data release are indeed "quite unusual," they are not unprecedented, according to Zhuang. China, in August 2009 and September 2015, postponed the release of monthly economic data such as inflation and retail sales due to long public holidays, the economist said.

However, it's the first time Beijing is delaying GDP data release.

COVID-19, debt crisis knocks China's GDP 

China's economy has been knocked by sporadic lockdowns amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and a debt crisis. Its GDP grew just 0.4% in the second quarter of 2022 from a year earlier — the slowest pace since the data started being published in 1992. This excludes a 6.9% year-over-year contraction in the first quarter of 2020, during the early days of the pandemic.

But analysts don't expect such poor showing in the third quarter, and economists polled by Reuters expect China's economy to grow 3.4% from a year ago. This is against China's 2022 GDP growth target of 5.5%, which is a guidance and not hard target, Bloomberg reported in August.

China's National Bureau of Statistics did not explain why the data's being delayed. But Zhao Chenxin, the deputy head of China's National Development and Reform Commission — a body in charge of macroeconomic planning — gave a positive assessment of the economy at a press conference on Monday, saying it "rebounded significantly" in the third quarter, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Analysts at ING said Monday they don't think the delay is due to "particularly weak" data — although the numbers are also not likely to paint a very positive picture of the Chinese economy.

"Rather, the delay suggests that the government believes that the 20th Party Congress is the most important thing happening in China right now and would like to avoid other information flows that could create mixed messages," wrote Robert Carnell, the Asia Pacific research head at ING, and Iris Pang, the Dutch bank's chief economist for Greater China.

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