Statistical haze ??

"Yet in China, too, the present downturn is jangling nerves. The country is a statistical haze, but the trade figures for last month—with exports 2% lower than in November 2007 and imports 18% down—were shocking. Power generation, generally a reliable number, fell by 7%. Even though the World Bank and other forecasters still expect China’s GDP to grow by 7.5% in 2009, that is below the 8% level regarded, almost superstitiously, as essential if huge social dislocation is to be avoided. Just this month a senior party researcher gave warning of what he called, in party-speak, “a reactive situation of mass-scale social turmoil”. Indeed, demonstrations and protests, always common in China, are proliferating, as laid-off factory-workers join dispossessed farmers, environmental campaigners and victims of police harassment in taking to the streets."

The excerpt is from Economist Dec 11th, 2008 "Suddenly Vulnerable". http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=12773135

I don't get the meaning of "statistical haze".
I looked up in different dictionaries but couldn't understand the meaning of it.

Kindly explain the it meaning and what does it mean in the given context.