China must punish officials for ‘cooking the books’ to improve data credibility, top lawmaker says
- Analysts have long had doubts over whether official Chinese government economic data accurately reflects what is going on in the world’s second largest economy
- Recent study found China overestimated its nominal and real growth rates by about 2 full percentage points on average between 2008 to 2016
China should increase supervision and punishment of government officials who manipulate statistics to improve the credibility of its economic data, according to a top lawmaker.
Analysts have long had doubts over whether official Chinese government economic data accurately reflects what is going on in the economy.
“Some local governments tend to cook their statistics, inflate some figures or conceal some data to stand out from the competition,” said Yin Zhongqing, deputy director of financial and economic affairs committee of the National People’s Congress on Sunday in Beijing. “Fraudulent data persists despite repeated crackdowns … The credibility of [Chinese] data is a long-standing issue.”
Inaccurate data prevents officials from implementing the proper economic policies in a timely manner and erodes the confidence of investors, which can cause reductions or delays in investing money into the Chinese economy.
The accuracy of economic data is becoming increasingly important as China opens up its economy to the world and seeks to attract foreign investors, who are used to broad transparency and availability of accurate information on economic activity.