A nationwide crackdown on false accounting has revealed a high number of Chinese companies cooking their books, said a source with the Ministry of Finance (MOF) on Friday.

The inspection last year covered 94 enterprises, mostly central State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and real estate firms, and 60 accounting firms.

The move came after Premier Wen Jiabao ordered stricter supervision of accounting information inaccuracy.

"The quality of accounting information and the operation of accounting firms have generally been improved, but problems still exist with a few enterprises having serious false accounts problems," said a report released by MOF Friday.

The 39 real estate firms surveyed had registered an average profit margin of 12.22 percent last year, but inspectors revealed the true average profit margin on 26.79 percent, said the source.

The firms were flagrantly seeking to evade taxes, resulting in a total of 9.3 billion yuan (1.16 billion U.S. dollars) in assets, 8.4 billion yuan in revenues and 3.3 billion yuan in profits being falsely reported.

Meanwhile, some real estate firms were found to be evading taxes by way of obtaining bank loans through fictitious transactions and fake contracts.

No figures for the total amount of false accounts for SOEs and accounting firms are disclosed.

Inspectors found China Worldbest Group, a key SOE and China's largest pharmaceutical and textile company, exaggerating its profits by 241 million yuan in 2003 and its investment incomes by 113 million yuan in 2004 to reach the performance targets set by the central government.

Those who were found making false accounts were given warnings and ordered to rectify their books, or have their licenses revoked.

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