Chinese Government Suspends PMI Data Release over Accuracy Concerns

More signs of the Chinese government’s “managing” (hiding, deleting and editing) of statistical data.

From Bloomberg:

China suspended the release of industry-specific data from a purchasing managers’ index for manufacturing because of accuracy concerns, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

“We can’t ensure all industry-specific data can reach accuracy requirements,” Sheng Laiyun, a statistics agency official, said at a briefing in Beijing today. “Samples in some industries are very small, and accidental changes may affect overall data quality -- we were concerned that some of the numbers may affect related investors and users.”

The statistics bureau and the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing suspended the release of some industry-specific PMI data to subscribers, starting with the June numbers published in July. That halt underscored concerns over China’s economic statistics, from exports inflated by false invoicing to a national unemployment rate that excludes the nation’s millions of migrant workers.

Such are reasons to always be wary of government statistics. To quote Mexican politician Josefina Vazquez Mota: There are two ways of lying. One, not telling the truth and the other, making up statistics