Another Chinese city admits releasing ‘fake’ economic data
Baotou is the latest provincial and local government in China to come clean on overstating its economic performance and revenue in official figures
A northern industrial city in China said its fiscal revenue last year was significantly less than it had earlier estimated partly due to “fake” additions, making a revision just days after reports of similar incidents fuelled scepticism over official data.
Baotou in China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region revised its estimated fiscal revenue in 2017 lower by nearly 50 per cent in an annual work report, a copy of which was published on the Baotou government’s website on January 13.
The Baotou city government said in the report that the revision was due to factors including “fake additions”. It did not say how the additions came about or who was responsible.
Days earlier, the governments of Inner Mongolia and Tianjin, a large port city in northern China, said their fiscal and economic numbers for 2016 had been overstated.
“We have been trying to change our mindset and change the course of our development model,” the Baotou government said, while pledging to tame government borrowings in part by halting debt-burdened public projects.
Baotou was forced to halt an ambitious subway construction project earlier last year as the central government questioned its ability to finance the debt.