BEIJING, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- China revised its 2008 gross domestic product (GDP) to 4.52 trillion U.S. dollars at the average exchange rate of 2008, narrowing the gap with Japan, the world's second largest economy with a GDP of 4.9 trillion U.S. dollars for the same year.
The revision resulted from China's second economic census which raised the country's 2008 economic growth rate to 9.6 percent from9 percent.
Given an estimate of more than 8 percent growth rate for China in 2009, accompanied by Japan's shrinking economy amid the global economic downturn, the country, currently the world's third largest economy, was poised to overtake Japan as the second largest.
Original Article: Chinese people cool-headed as China poised to be the world's 2nd largest economy_English_Xinhua
