China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has established a dedicated department responsible for investigating the publication of misleading statistics.

"The new department will establish a mechanism for handling cases involving officials meddling with and falsifying statistical figures," an NBS spokesperson said.

Some officials had requested that statisticians fabricate figures in order to improve their apparent performance, the spokesperson said. And some of those producing the figures changed the figures to please their superiors.

According to media reports China's annual economic growth rates issued by the NBS have always been lower than those calculated by the local governments of the 31 provincial areas of the Chinese mainland.

In the first half of this year the NBS reported economic growth of 10.9 percent. But figures from provincial governments indicated a much higher rate. All the 31 provinces reported double-digit growth with 23 of them reporting rates above 12 percent.

NBS officials said they'd always had to readjust figures supplied by local authorities according to their own data in order to make national figures more accurate.

The NBS spokesperson said Thursday that scrutiny from the public was welcome and would be helpful in improving the quality of statistics.

(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2006)