BEIJING — China will introduce unified regional gross domestic product (GDP) accounting in early 2020, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Nov 13.

Since the establishment of the accounting system in China in 1985, its country GDP and regional GDP have adopted a graded accounting system. The NBS has been accounting for country GDP, while the provincial, regional and municipal statistics offices have been accounting for GDP at the regional level.

The NBS will lead the unified accounting of regional GDP after the reform. It will organize local statistics offices to map methods of accounting, map and standardize the unified procedures in accounting, conduct unified accounting and release the results.

The reform is an inevitable requirement for improving the quality of statistical data and the credibility of government statistics, said Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS.

The reform can give better play to the statistical supervision and provide more solid data support for macro-decision-making, Ning said.