China's economy "40 percent smaller than estimated"

A US-based economist claims - based on figures of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) - that China's economy is 40 percent smaller than estimated, writes AFP (following an unlinkable article in the FT).

Albert Keidel, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former US Treasury official and World Bank economist, made the comments in a report published by the US think tank and in a commentary in the Financial Times.
Keidel told AFP he made the calculations based on a recent ADB report that made its first analysis of China's economy based on so-called purchasing power parity (PPP), which strips out the impact of exchange rates.

Keidel says that now also the World Bank is rethinking its figures on China's economy. "These calculations are not just esoteric academic tweaks."