China’s top statistician yesterday said anyone caught falsifying economic data would face zero tolerance and be punished under the law.
There has long been skepticism about the reliability of Chinese data, especially as the government has sought to reduce expectations of a protracted slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.
In January, the “rustbelt” northeastern province of Liaoning said in its annual work report it had falsified reporting of fiscal data from 2011 to 2014.
Speaking on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Chinese parliament, Chinese National Bureau of Statistics Director Ning Jizhe (寧吉喆) said violations would be investigated and punished.
“As soon as there are statistical cases that break the law or faked, it will be voted down, there will be zero tolerance, no appeasement,” said Ning, who is also Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.
The combined economic output of China’s provinces has long exceeded national output measured by the statistics bureau, raising suspicions that local officials were overstating performance.
The gap has been narrowing, but the discrepancy between provincial GDP and the national figure was still 2.76 trillion yuan (US$399.71 billion) last year, roughly equal to Thailand’s GDP.
Ning said China’s economy has shown signs of improvement in the first two months of the year with little risk of a hard landing.
He said China’s economy stabilized in the beginning of the year, with industrial output in January and last month growing more than 6 percent, and the services sector expanding more than 8 percent.
The country’s campaign to cut overcapacity also appears to be bearing fruit.
The coal and steel industries reported negative growth and property inventories in China’s third and fourth-tier cities declined in the first two months, he said.
Ning’s remarks suggested that policymakers in Beijing are more upbeat as they set a growth target of about 6.5 percent for this year.
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