This article presents data on the gross value of industrial output (GVIO) by province for the years 1949–73 and shows their relationship to GVIO figures published for the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a whole. From the founding of the People's Republic on 1 October 1949 until the Great Leap Forward in 1958, Chinese statistical authorities made conscious and sustained efforts to copy Soviet statistical organization and practices. Consequently, the Chinese statistical system, as it developed in the 1950s, mirrored the Soviet system. Descriptions of the Soviet statistical system give valuable insights into the functioning of the Chinese system, and an understanding of problems noted in western studies of Soviet statistics has often been important to an understanding of statistical data from China.