China's central government has decided to take back local governments' rights to calculate regional GDP after many figures were found to be 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 Beijing 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, urging officials to control GDP growth and pay more attention to the environment.

China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 10.9 percent in the first half of this year. But all the provincial regions reported two-digit GDP growth rate in the first half, with 23 of them above12 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)