Shandong probes claim that county head falsified economic data

Shandong province and its Weifang city have jointly sent investigators to Changle county on Saturday in response to a claim by the founder of Letin, an automobile group, that a senior county official had forced local enterprises to overstate their industrial and sales output value.

The team will deal with the case based on regulation and law, said Weifang Release, the WeChat public account of the local government.

On Saturday, the official WeChat account of Letin published its founder Li Guoxin's public letter and video, saying that last year Wang Xiao, Party chief of the Changle county, had forced his company to report 4.68 billon yuan ($698.6 million) more than its real sales output value.

Li said that Wang did so to make the county's economic situation appear better to highlight his personal achievements and get promoted. Li said since March Wang has forced large local enterprises to falsify output values.

Letin, founded in 2008, designs and sells electric cars.