BEIJING — Vice-Premier Han Zheng has stressed the quality of data for the country’s fourth national economic census.

Measures should be taken to ensure that registrations for the census go smoothly and that there will be strengthened data quality control, said Han, who is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of a leading group overseeing the census.

“The original data must be authentic and reliable so as to conduct a high-quality examination of the national economy,” Han said during an inspection of the census work in Beijing on Jan 4.

He demanded census workers conduct investigations and reports independently and guard against any interference.

The personal and business secrets of subjects involved in the census must be protected, he noted.

China’s fourth national economic census entered its registration phase on the first day of 2019. The survey, launched every five years, will cover all businesses involved in the secondary and tertiary industries, painting a wide economic picture.