China’s National Bureau of Statistics accused local governments of forcing companies to report false data, in its first attempt to fight fraud statistics, which has been long under fire for ambiguous, sometimes even self-contradictory data including GDP.

In a recently opened-up column, the office said local officials and Hejin city in central China’s Shanxi Province “prepared data send them to some companies via email and telephone, requirement them to report that data to the NBS.”

Similar things happened in a district of Chongqing, the southwest municipality, where local government ordered companies should be granted approval by relevant departments before reporting their data to the NBS, according to a statement in the website.

The governments’ meddling with statistic-reporting system violates the statistic law and regulations, the NBS said, which has directly led to “seriously falsified reports” by many companies.

The NBS also established a hotline for complaints and launched a campaign to mobilize some 10,000 employees to be stationed in companies.

“We want all such cases invested to the end, under combined forces of local statistical branches and the nation’s special investigation team,” said Guo Guoyun, a senior official with the NBS.

The NBS said earlier this month China’s GDP grew 10.3 percent year-on-year to nearly 40 trillion yuan, some 10 percent higher than combined GDP figures reported by local provinces and regions.

GDP remains an important criterion to measure local officials’ performance, despite years of calls for the nation to shift its focus away from economic growth.