China's central government is to take back the rights of local
governments to calculate regional gross domestic product (GDP)
after it was discovered that many of their figures were
fabricated.
"Provincial survey teams have been put under the direct
leadership of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) so that they
would not encounter interference from local governments," said Xie
Fuzhan, the NBS director, at Thursday's work conference on
statistics.
The sum of local GDP in 2004 was 2.66 trillion yuan (US$334.6
billion), more than the national figure released by the NBS,
causing outrage from the former statistics chief.
As the most important index reflecting regional economic growth,
GDP growth is still the goal pursued by local governments and
officials. A poor statistics system in China has also increased
inaccuracy.
"It often happens that local governments interfere with the
accounting to make them look better than they are," said Cai
Zhizhou, an expert in the field at?Peking University.
The central government has advocated taking substantive measures
to shift its focus from pursuing speed to improving the quality and
efficiency of economic growth. Officials are also being urged to
control GDP growth and pay more attention to the environment.
China's GDP grew 10.9 percent in the first half of 2005. But all
the provincial regions reported two-digit GDP growth rate in the
first half of that year with 23 of them above 12 percent.
By the end of 2006, the NBS had formed its own survey teams in
30 provinces. "The NBS will improve unified accounting of added
value in the agriculture and construction industries and speed up
the local GDP accounting by central government," said Xie.
(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2007)