... highest in China's history at 14.2% (Table 1). This is obviously very encouraging for the Chinese Government, due to the success of these measures they have taken further steps towards becoming a more free market economy. It is very difficult to measure the size of China's economy accurately. A BBC Online report I examined stated that China's economy had, due to its economic output in 2001 overtaken Italy as the sixth largest economy in the world, and is now challenging France as fifth. A Bloomberg spokeswoman said that "At current exchange levels, China could overtake France next year, and the UK in 2005 or 2006." China's per capita GDP is only $790 and it is reckoned by the World Bank that nearly 30% of the population lives beneath the poverty line of $1 a day. This would indicate that the economy and its people's living standards were far below that ...

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