The central bank Wednesday vowed to launch a nationwide campaign against the rising tide of counterfeit currency.

Ye Yingnan, director of the Currency, Gold and Silver Bureau of the People's Bank of China, told reporters that, although the proportion of counterfeit notes in circulation is relatively small, there was a sharp rise in cases of counterfeiting renminbi (RMB) last year.

According to Ye, police netted 550 million yuan (US$66.5 million) of counterfeit money in 2004, a whopping 139.1 percent year-on-year increase. Financial institutions across the country seized a further 610 million yuan (US$73.7 million) in bogus cash, up 45 percent from the previous year.

Counterfeiting occurs in all provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions including Tibet, with the amount of fake money seized each day totaling about 2 million yuan (US$241,000).

The sharp rise in reported counterfeiting cases can be seen on the one hand to reflect the government's efforts to stamp out the crime. But it is also indicative of how widespread counterfeiting has become, and the urgent need to tackle this issue, which is a threat to the economy.

Half of all counterfeiting offences were reported in Guangdong in south China, with the biggest distribution base of counterfeit cash being Henan in central China.

With most forged cash being produced in Guangdong, the nearby provinces of Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi all saw the seizure of fake money rise by more than 100 percent last year.

Big cities and developed areas along the east coast also reported an increase in counterfeiting, but a developing trend has been for counterfeit money traffickers to move into smaller cities and even rural areas.

And in addition to counterfeiting large denomination banknotes, criminals have also started forging coins and notes of smaller denominations. Police in Hunan last year raided five factories that produced counterfeit coins, and seized 260,000 one-yuan coins.

Ye said that as fake money poses a threat to the country's economy, it is imperative to crack down on counterfeiting. But the task has become increasingly demanding because counterfeiters employ high-tech methods for production and distribution.

According to Ye, for every 10,000 yuan (US$1,209) in circulation, about 1.2 yuan is fake. This is approximately the same ratio as in the US.

(China Daily May 19, 2005)