China says it has no motivation to inflate data as Beijing pursues slower but ‘quality growth’
- National Bureau of Statistics official has conceded that there were problems before in compiling data but they have been ‘dealt with’
- Majority of the country’s 31 provinces have lowered growth targets for 2019, according to state media reports
China’s statistics bureau defended the reliability of its data, emphasising the government wants quality growth, not fast expansion, and so does not need to artificially inflate the data.
“China isn’t chasing fast growth – the growth rate can come down as long as it’s quality growth, employment is ensured, prices are controlled and the manufacturing environment is improving,” Mao Shengyong, director of the Department for Comprehensive Statistics at the National Bureau of Statistics, said.
Even if it is slower, quality growth of that sort was acceptable, Mao said.
Therefore, the central government had no motivation to ask statisticians to make the number higher, he said, adding that he had not experienced that kind of pressure personally.
Without accurate data, the government will struggle to understand what is actually going on in the economy, which is critically important as growth slows.
While authorities have strengthened supervision, stepped up punishments and opened a webpage to name and shame local authorities after a number of provinces were found to be overstating gross domestic product, China watchers still are not fully convinced official statistics are accurate yet, citing anomalies in data such as industrial profits or retail sales.
