BEIJING, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Trade figures are supposed to be accurate and authentic, but based on different statistical methods, they may present vastly different pictures, some are closer to reality in trade, others are far away from truth.

Washington has long been pressuring on Beijing over its massive trade surplus with the United States. But the question is: Could the figures, based on traditional trade statistics and rules of origin, reveal the true picture of China-U.S. trade?

Many economists believe the current method of evaluating trade figures significantly magnifies the U.S. deficit with China.

Echoing their opinions, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy has said that using conventional trade statistics would overestimate the U.S. bilateral deficit vis-a-vis China by around 30 percent as compared to measuring in value added content based.

"The figures would reach more than 50 percent" when the activities of export processing zones are fully taken into account," he said earlier this year in a speech to the Paris School of Economics.

Currently, both China and the United States calculate their external trade according to the country of origin principle, which dated back to the 1940s.

A growing number of international economists and experts believe, however, there are irrationalities in this widely-used statistical method, especially because huge errors might occur when it is applied to calculating entrepot trade and processing trade, and here lies the essence of the matter when the United States seriously exaggerates its trade deficit against China and distorts bilateral trade balance.

"Relying on conventional trade statistics also gives us a distorted picture of trade imbalances between countries," Lamy said.

"What counts is not the imbalances as measured by gross values of exports and imports, but how much value added is embedded in these flows," Lamy added.

As manufacturing supply chains integrate across borders, components are often manufactured in one country and then shipped to China or another country for final assembly.

Goods are tagged only at their final assembly point. This means the gross value of exports is not necessarily indicative of economic benefits for the exporting country.

This was well illustrated in the case of "Barbie doll," an example cited in a Los Angeles Times story titled "Barbie and the World Economy" dated Sept. 22, 1996.

The story said that in the United States, the price of a "Barbie doll" imported from China was 9.99 U.S. dollars compared to an import price of two dollars.

Of the two dollars, China only gained 35 cents in service fee, another 65 cents were spent on importing raw materials and still another one dollar covers costs of transportation and management. Therefore, under the rules of origin it is unreasonable to account the two dollars as the revenue of Chinese exports to the United States.

In a speech to the French Senate in Paris in mid-October, Lamy called on world countries to drop their "country of origin" labeling requirements because so many products are "made in the world."

Labeling products by country of origin "has gradually become obsolete," as various operations, from design to manufacture of components and assembly, have spread across the world, Lamy said.

He added that it was time for the world's statistical agencies to start developing a new measuring system that examines "the underlying concepts of international trade and balance of payments statistics."