Give down-to-earth stats

Growing public doubt over last year's growth in home prices has forced National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) chief Ma Jiantang to admit to technical flaws in its current handling of processing stats, as political consultants and lawmakers gather in Beijing for annual sessions.

But the response does not go far enough to narrow the credibility gap that the country's statisticians should be held accountable for.

In spite of signs of increasing bubbles in the domestic real estate market, the NBS announced last week that housing prices in China's 70 major cities increased by only 1.5 percent year-on-year in 2009.