Thanks to eye-popping revisions, few economies can claim a better year than China. A sweeping census uncovered an additional $278bn of gross domestic product, vaulting China over old-world stalwarts Italy, France and probably the UK to become the fourth-biggest economy.

Bigger, alas, is not necessarily better. While not the central case, the possibility of a marked slowdown persists. November exports and retail sales growth showed signs of softening and inventories are reported to be rising. The peak of the business cycle seems to have passed. Even adjusting for the large upward revision to output, which comes largely from the less capital-intensive services sector, China’s investment ratio is probably still about 40 per cent of GDP. This investment is frequently unproductive. This year in the steel industry, for example, when most countries cut production, China increased output by a quarter and had to slash prices as a result.