China Voice: New metrics needed to understand China's changing economy

To understand China's slowing economy and make wise decisions, foreign investors need to pay closer attention to new economic metrics, all of which point to a silver lining.

China's GDP grew at its weakest pace in a quarter of a century last year, renewing a prolonged Rashomon-like debate between China and some Western countries over the prospects of the world's second largest economy.

To understand where the Chinese economy is heading, the international community should abandon obsolete and misleading perspectives and focus on new measurements that tell a different story.

By traditional standards, the Chinese economy is indeed weakening with drops in GDP growth, industrial product prices, profitability of factories and fiscal revenue.

The recent stock market volatility and the yuan's depreciation against the U.S. dollar have also sounded the alarm for latent economic and financial risks.

It is undeniable that the Chinese economy is facing persistent downward pressure, and it is unlikely to expect a V-shaped economic recovery in the short run, even if the government rolls out a flurry of short-term stimulus measures.

However, the economy could achieve L-shaped growth at a slower growth rate but with better quality as Chinese leaders try to nurture new growth areas for cleaner and more sustainable expansion.

To fully grasp the signs of improvement in the Chinese economy, overseas observers and investors need to look at new metrics and collect new data that were previously ignored.

In the first 11 months of 2015, a total of 18.2 billion parcels were delivered, surging 48 percent year on year. Courier service revenue grew 34 percent to 245.6 billion yuan (37.8 billion U.S. dollars).

The rising courier industry indicates a robust e-commerce sector and rapidly expanding domestic consumption, which contributed 66.4 percent to the country's GDP last year.

In a sign of a strong arts and culture market, China's box office sales topped 44 billion yuan in 2015, jumping 48 percent from the previous year.

The robust film industry also helped boost the development of billion-dollar businesses, including cinemas, video games, music and video-sharing networks.

In 2015, 4 billion trips were made to domestic tourist attractions and tourism revenue exceeded 4 trillion yuan. The sector made up 10.1 percent of China's GDP and received 10.2 percent of the country's total workforce.

Consumption will continue to power the country's future growth as better-off Chinese, particularly young people in cities, are increasingly willing to spend on entertainment and leisure.

China is projected to remain one of the world's fastest-growing consumer markets, reaching 6.5 trillion U.S. dollars in annual private consumption by 2020, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group.

Young, affluent and tech-savvy consumers will fuel growth in China, said the report.

In the worst-hit secondary sector, bullet trains, new-energy vehicles and smart electronic devices are bright spots, although efforts to phase out polluting, energy-intensive and non-competitive industries dragged down growth.

A business climate index for China's small and medium-sized enterprises, created by search engine Baidu and based on big data, has been improving for nearly a year amid government efforts to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.

Traditional growth propellers measured by conventional indicators are losing steam as a result of economic upgrades and restructuring. However, emerging engines gauged by new metrics will power the Chinese economy in a steadier and more sustainable way. Endi