At times, what statisticians say can be more revealing than the statistics they present. This was certainly the case with Ma Jiantang of China’s National Bureau of Statistics when he commented this month on the country’s latest national income figures. His observation that “2012 will be a year of complexity and challenges”, was a masterpiece of understatement.

China’s economy faces two sets of problems this year. The first is the continued weakness of exports, owing to the slowdown in Europe which is China’s main trading partner. The second is the faltering real estate market. New property starts fell by almost 20 per cent year on year in December alone.

The optimists prefer to look at the overall figures, which show the economy growing at 8.9 per cent in the fourth quarter. In their view, these figures suggest that Beijing is succeeding in orchestrating the “soft landing” which some analysts predicted would be impossible. The pessimists, meanwhile, prefer to emphasise how unreliable these figures really are.