Photo: A retreating resevoir on the outskirts of Beijing

The numbers making news around China during the week of September 2, 2013

3.6 billion cubic meters
Amount of water consumed by Beijing each year - far more than the 2.1 billion cubic meters locally available. China File

$1 billion
Amount China spends annually on imported milk powder, with some 90 percent of that coming from New Zealand. Reuters

2,160 to 3,240
Estimated number of censors that Sina Weibo employs, based on a Harvard study. This is based on the finding that two to three censors are needed for every 50,000 social network users. Wall Street Journal

3 percent
Bank profits as a share of China’s economic output last year. The highest ratio achieved in recent decades by American banks was only 1 percent of GDP (in 2006). The Economist

8.9 years
Average “latency period” between a corrupt official’s first offense and their exposure, according to a recent study by Professor Tian Guoliang, director of the Central Party School’s publishing house. This is up from less than a year in the 1980s and 4.2 years in the 1990s. News China

185.64 percent
The debt-to-GDP ratio of Wuhan, 1.5 times higher than the U.S. red line on government debt levels. Caijing

$1.2 billion
China’s mobile game market is expected to surpass $1.2 billion in 2013. Venture Beat