‘Zombie’ enterprises

“ZOMBIE” enterprises are impeding the country’s economic transformation, said the country’s biggest State aluminum producer, even though thousands of such unprofitable and indebted State-owned firms have been eliminated.

There are three difficulties when it comes to getting rid of zombie firms, Xinhua said, quoting Ge Honglin, chairman of Aluminum Corp. of China. Local governments, financial institutions, and stakeholders and suppliers are keeping such zombie firms alive to protect their own interests, said Ge. China plans to eliminate thousands of zombie firms by 2020.

Fraud targeted

THE government will look into improving statistics quality by using the Internet, cloud computing, big data as well as reducing unnecessary layers in data gathering, Yin Zhongqing, vice director of the National People’s Congress’ financial and economic affairs committee, said at briefing in Beijing.

Data fraud by some local governments resulted in a higher sum of all provincial GDP added together compared to the national one, Yin said, without identifying the provinces. Statistics collected by different ministries vary in some cases because the agencies adopt different standards, the lawmaker said.