Chen Xikang, a researcher with the Institute of System Science,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his colleagues forecasted China's
grain and cotton outputs for 2001 with an input-occupancy-output
analysis (an extension of classical input-output analysis) invented
by themselves. According to the statistics published by the
National Bureau of Statistics in 2002, the forecast, precise and
world advanced, differed only by 1.4 percent to the results of a
sample survey.
The error rate of the grain output forecast in developed countries
is between 5 percent and 10 percent. For instance, the error rate
for US Department of Agriculture's forecast two months in advance
is between 8 percent and 9 percent; former Soviet's error rate is
from 7 percent to 8 percent and France's average error in the past
six years was 9 percent. Their forecasts generally look no more
than two months forward. Chen started to forecast grain output in
1980, six months in advance, and with an average error rate of
merely 1.8 percent.
Wassily Leontief, a Noble Prize winner [in economics], put forward
the input-output technology in 1973. Cheng and his colleagues
brought the factors of occupancy into account and advanced the
input-occupancy-output analysis. The factors of occupancy include
fixed and floating capital, skilled labor force, knowledge and
natural recourse. Knowledge of operational research has also been
applied. In April 2001, Chen forecasted that the whole year's grain
output would be 459 million tons and cotton output 5.4 million
tons, differing by 1.4 percent to the sample survey. The technology
leads in theory as well as practice in the world and won the First
Degree Award of Science and Technology Advancement of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences.
(光明日報
[Guangming Daily] by Xue Dong and Liu Juan, translated by Feng
Yikun for china.org.cn, May 10, 2002)