China launches economic data inspections to ‘prevent, punish falsification and fabrication’ as key census begins
- China’s statistics bureau will conduct data inspections in the provinces of Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hunan, Guizhou and Shaanxi starting this month
- Beijing has long pledged to improve the quality of its economic data, with a particular focus this year ahead of the fifth national economic census
China has launched a statistical inspection specially targeting local data fraud, a move attempting to ensure authenticity and ease market concerns with the closely watched fifth national economic census already under way.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Tuesday that it will conduct the first specialised data inspections of the year starting from late July, covering the provinces of Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hunan, Guizhou and Shaanxi.
“As an important ‘weapon’ of statistical supervision, the specialised statistical inspection is … to resolutely prevent and punish data falsification and fabrication,” the statistics bureau said.
“It is an important institutional arrangement to continuously enhance the scientificity and authority of statistical work and the authenticity and accuracy of statistical data.”
NBS inspection teams have already been stationed in three provinces as of Tuesday, and their inspections would last around 13 days, the bureau added.
The teams will conduct interviews, review tip-offs from the public, study relevant documents and carry out law enforcement inspections, according to the statement.
Local governments are believed to have the most incentives to inflate figures, with the common perception among officials that their career prospects are closely related to economic performance.
In 2021, the NBS disclosed cases of economic data fraud by local governments following a two-year inspection, where some officials instructed enterprises to forge figures.
Others also provided fake statistical tables for companies to “follow suit” to ensure a “steady increase”.
The most recent fraud case involved Levdeo, a Shandong-based Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer, whose founder Li Guoxin said in January that county-level officials in Weifang city had forced the company to inflate its industrial output and sales value to 6.7 billion yuan (US$939 million) compared to actual sales of 2 billion yuan.
The Weifang government released a notice on Tuesday saying that its investigation had found that Levdeo had inflated its statistical data, and that county-level officials had interfered with the reporting of the data. Nine relevant local officials have been punished.
China launched its fifth national economic census in June, with the survey of the country’s secondary and tertiary industries set to last until December.
Census agencies at all levels should strengthen the quality control of the whole process
The economic census, last conducted in 2018, will provide an insight into the impact of three years of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, published an opinion piece on Wednesday, titled “ensuring the authenticity and accuracy of the fifth national economic census”.
It said all relevant departments should implement the “data quality first principle”.
“Strict audits are required to ensure data quality. Census agencies at all levels should strengthen the quality control of the whole process … to ensure the authenticity and accuracy of the census data,” the article said.
“It is necessary to organise post-event quality inspections, strengthen census law enforcement inspections, resolutely resist falsification of census data, and resolutely resist various acts of interfering with census data.”
