If taken at face value, the survey data on prices, together with China’s growth rates, would suggest that China was almost as poor in 1981 as the world’s poorest country today, with average personal consumption below the current level of Liberia – another country to which China provides significant aid. While the Bank’s latest PPP-conversion rate puts the number of poor Chinese at 173 million, the previous rate would suggest that only 69 million Chinese were living below the poverty line.