The former head of China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Qiu Xiaohua, is suspected of involvement in the Shanghai social security fund fraud and is being investigated by disciplinary departments, a NBS spokesman said yesterday.

Li Xiaochao, the newly-appointed NBS spokesman, said at the bureau's quarterly press conference that Qiu was found to "have seriously violated disciplines" in the Shanghai social security fund case. The issue made headlines in September and led to the stunning ousting of Chen Liangyu from his post of secretary of the Shanghai municipal committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Dismissed from his post of NBS director on October 12, Qiu had only been installed seven months earlier.

Born in 1958, Qiu is a native of southeast China's Fujian Province. He graduated from the Department of Economics of Xiamen University in 1982. He went on to serve as chief economist and NBS spokesman between 1993 and 1998 and was appointed deputy director in 1999.

Xie Fuzhan, previously deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, was appointed new NBS director. Upon making his first public speech at a symposium on October 13, Xie promised self-discipline and that the NBS would redouble its efforts to "improve the Party's work style and build a clean government."

(Xinhua News Agency October 20, 2006)