Lego Golden Anniversary Set

Chinese Economy Continues on Path to Pass the US Economy By 2016

According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016, or only 5 more years. This is 10 years earlier than the forecast under current exchange rates. Under Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times, while China’s would reach 18% and still increasing at a steady rate.

According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, China’s GDP has increased by 9.7 percent in the first quarter of 2011 from a year earlier. The growth is higher than China’s set target of around 8 percent for full year 2011.

In comparison, in the first quarter and fourth quarter of 2010, China’s GDP grew by 11.9 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively. The National Bureau of Statistics said that China’s economy "had a good beginning with steady and relatively fast growth."

Consumer spending, among the three engines of China’s economic growth, has contributed the most to the first quarter’s GDP growth, at 5.9 percentage points out of the 9.7 percent growth. Retail sales surged 16.3 percent year on year in the first quarter.

Another important economic engine, urban fixed asset investment, surged 25.0 percent to RMB 3.95 trillion, contributing 4.3 percentage points in the 9.7 percent GDP growth. Within the urban investment, the property sector increased by 34.1 percent year on year to RMB884.6 billion.

The foreign trading volume rose 29.5 percent to around USD 800.3 billion. The trade deficit of the first quarter of 2011 was around USD 1 billion. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the deficit has dragged the GDP growth down by 0.5 percentage points in the first quarter of 2011.

The producer price index in China rose 7.3 percent in March from the previous year, the highest in the past 30 months. The purchase prices of major industrial materials were up by 10.2 percent in the first quarter year on year.

From the retail side, the consumer price index hit a 32-month high, increasing 5.4 percent from a year ago in March, which was higher than the government’s yearly target of controlling the index at around 4.0 percent. Food prices rose 11 percent from last year.

Lego Halo Sets: LEGO 50th Anniversary Building Set Review

This set of 700 basic lego blocks is a good value. This is a nice set for making buildings, but it does not include wheels for making cars. Of the sets out there, this is one of the more colorful sets with two shades of green and two shades of blue blocks. The golden brick is unique, but it is hardly the reason to buy this. The box works fairly well for storage and can fit under the couch when not in use. As is the case in all of these sets, you get a fair number of smaller 1x1 and 1x2 bricks, but for under fourty dollars you get a lot of bricks. It would be nice if they included some wheels, but you might consider looking at lego dot com to add specific pieces that you like. Also, you might consider buying some used pieces (even dating back to the 1970s) from bricklink dot com.

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