Town's false data prompts investigation

A town in South China's Guangdong Province was criticized Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for falsification of statistical data, the official statistical agency's latest move to improve the accuracy of statistical data.

Following up on tip-offs from the public, the NBS found the town of Henglan in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province had falsified statistical data for industrial enterprises, the bureau said in a bulletin posted on its website Friday.

Enterprises reporting business data to the national statistical system must be industrial enterprises above a designated size, but the NBS said spot checks of 73 Henglan industrial enterprises in the national system found that 38 were below the designated size and 19 had stopped production, relocated or been dissolved.

The false data was fabricated by the staff of the local statistics office, and town leaders found out about the fabrications in May or June but have yet to correct them, the bulletin said.

Compared with last year's reported industrial output of 8.51 billion yuan ($1.39 billion) for the 71 local industrial enterprises being checked, the actual verified data was only 2.22 billion yuan, the NBS said.

Further checks by the Zhongshan government found that data from 44 Henglan enterprises with billions of yuan in industrial output, which should have been included as industrial enterprises above the designated size, was not calculated due to nonfeasance of the local statistical staff, Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.

Henglan said Saturday on its website that it would strengthen training for data reporting and reinforce supervision to correct illegal practices.

Guangdong authorities have delegated four investigation teams to check statistical data at various locations within the province, the Nanfang Daily reported Saturday.

This is the first such case announced by the NBS, further raising public doubts over the reliability of the nation's macroeconomic indicators.

Since the NBS launched its direct online reporting system in February 2012, data accuracy has been much better, as enterprises can report their business data directly to the NBS without the interference of local governments, Zhang Lei, a macroeconomic analyst with Minsheng Securities, told the Global Times Sunday.

But local government officials' obsession with achievement, as well as companies' hopes of raising more money by overstating their business performance, still create an impetus for falsifying data, Zhang said.

Since February 2012, Yong­chuan district in Chongqing, Hejin in Shanxi Province, Yumen in Gansu Province and Jian'ou in Fujian Province have been accused of asking enterprises to report data to the national system in accordance with local government requirements or after being approved by local governments.

Investment data and industrial added value, closely connected to local GDP, are most frequently falsified, Zhang said.

Aiming to enhance investment data accuracy, the NBS launched a pilot reform program for fixed-assets investment data in four cities on May 31, calculating the investment amounts based on fiscal expenditure rather than estimates of the projects' market value at completion.

Zhang said more microeconomic data, such as enterprises' operating rates and electricity consumption, are needed to verify the accuracy of macroeconomic data.

Political achievement should be assessed with a focus on the environment and public livelihood, rather than the current focus on GDP, so that local governments will have less motivation to interfere with statistical data, Yuan Gangming, a professor with Tsinghua University, was quoted by Beijing Business Today as saying.