China on Friday revised up 2009 gross domestic product growth to 9.1% from 8.7% on the back of higher output from industry and services.
The revision means China was even closer at the end of 2009 to overtaking Japan as the world's second-largest economy -- a status it is virtually certain to secure this year on current growth trends.
China's output last year totalled 34.05 trillion yuan (USD 5.02 trillion), up from an initial estimate of 33.54 trillion yuan, the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website, www.stats.gov.cn.
At last December's exchange rate that was about USD 4.98 trillion, compared with USD 5.1 trillion for Japan, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The NBS revised growth in China's industrial sector to 9.9% from 9.5%. Services expanded by 9.3%, revised from 8.9%.
The growth rate of the agricultural sector was unchanged at 4.2%.
After the revisions, industry made up 46.3% of total GDP (48.6% in 2008), services 43.4 percent (40.1% in 2008) and agriculture 10.3% (11.3% in 2008).
On World Bank figures, Japan's GDP was 11.9 percent bigger than China's at the end of 2008.
Using the so-called Atlas method that the bank prefers to measure the relative sizes of economies, Japan was 20 percent bigger than China in 2008.
(Reporting by Zhou Xin and Langi Chiang; Editing by Alan Wheatley and Chris Lewis)
(For more business news on Reuters India click http://in.reuters.com)
