Fake Economic Data Detected, A Number Of Officials In China Fired

Illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Ecow)

JAKARTA - Chinese authorities have punished a number of local officials with demotion or dismissal for falsifying economic data, the country's statistics bureau said on Friday.

It said local authorities took the step as part of efforts to curb data fraud as the economy faltered.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) discovered data breaches in 2020 and 2021 after conducting inspections in several cities, Xingtai in Hebei Province, Jiaozuo in Henan Province, Bijie and Anshun in Guizhou Province, the bureau said in a statement on its website.

Authorities in Hebei have sentenced 45 officials in Xingtai after finding some of his data on industrial output, fixed asset investment, wholesale and retail sales to be highly inaccurate, he said.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Henan have taken disciplinary and organizational action against 38 officials for the data breach. The Guizhou authorities have given similar sentences to 22 officials, he said. Such action refers to demotion or dismissal.

In March, China's anti-corruption watchdog pledged to increase scrutiny of the country's statistical agency, addressing the "tremendous problem of data fraud and falsification."

The Chinese economy has been hit hard by the tight COVID-19 controls, with many private sector economists expecting gross domestic product to contract in the April-June quarter.

Earlier, Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday that China would seek to achieve reasonable economic growth in the second quarter and stem rising unemployment, after launching a series of supportive policies.

In addition, PM Li also promised to ensure local economic indicators in the second quarter will be published "according to laws and regulations".

To note, widespread global skepticism about the reliability of China's data is longstanding, especially as the government has sought to assuage market expectations of a deepening slowdown in the world's second-largest economy.

China has set an annual economic growth target of around 5.5 percent this year, but many economists believe that is now getting out of hand.