Amid skepticism on the reliability of its data, China is said to be revising its statistics law to prevent persistent data fraud. The draft of the amended law has been submitted to the standing committee of the National People's Congress for discussions.
It is said that the amendment will help to strengthen statistical supervision and also help authorities pin down legal responsibility. Adding that authorities will increase fines for illegal behaviour by firms or public institutions that refuse to, or delay, reporting data.
Well, it comes at a bit of a sensitive time for China considering the state of its economy. Beijing will want to prove that it can still consistently meet its growth target, and wants to look credible at that. My take is that it will take more transparency and more years of actual honest reporting to change any perception currently. One or two years of good isn't going to cover for the fact that we've had decades of skepticism on Chinese data reliability.
