(ECNS) - A senior official said some Chinese companies had been found to have reported false economic data during a review of the enforcement of China's Statistics Law.
Wang Dongming, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said inspection of law enforcement had revealed some outstanding problems including reporting false economic data or refusing to make reports in order to pass an assessment, seek financing or evade tax.
The National Bureau of Statistics had verified data of 2,051 enterprises and 2,942 fixed-asset investment projects since 2017, based on the reporting of abnormal data, later finding 1195 companies and 2775 investment projects had fabricated or misrepresented data to authorities, according to Wang.
He said companies in Lingang Economic Zone in Binhai New Area of Tianjin, Kailu County of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Xifeng County in Liaoning Province reported statistical data 56 times, 10 times, and 6.7 times higher than the authentic information respectively.
The three places mentioned in the report - Tianjin, Inner Mongolia, and Liaoning - were also areas that had acknowledged the falsification of economic data in recent years.
In January 2018, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region admitted its economic data was fraudulent and the industrial added value of some counties was not true. At the same time, Tianjin Binhai New Area reduced its 2016 GDP from one trillion yuan to 665.4 billion yuan after removing false data.
Gaomi City in Shandong Province was also found to have refused to cooperate with inspectors of statistical law enforcement.
It’s difficult to conduct independent investigation, independent supervision, and independent reporting in some regions due to the interventions of local governments and obstructions faced by statistical agencies and personnel, Wang said.
Despite two revisions since its implementation, statistical law is still difficult to adapt to actual needs and requires further revision, Wang said.
