China planed to put local gross domestic product (GDP) unde unified calculation in a move to prevent provinces from cooking their economic figures, a top official with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Thursday.

Ma Jiantang, minister of the NBS, said at the national statistics work conference that the current GDP calculation mechanism, uner which local governments calculated their own GDP and reported to the NBS for verification, had some drawbacks, such as local intervention.

"Unified calculation of local GDP is a standard international practice," Ma said, adding that the NBS was working to introduce a unified GDP calculation scheme.

Ma also said the country would offer quarter-on-quarter figures of major economic indicators from this quarter.

"Month-on-month and quarter-on-quarter figures are often faster and more accurate to reflect a country's economic situation than year-on-year data," Ma said.

The country has released month-on-month figures of consumer price index but never published month-on-month figures of major economic indicators including industrial production and GDP growth.

(Xinhua News Agency January 29, 2009)