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)