A local government in China has been found to have falsified land sale deals to inflate fiscal revenues amid a five-year slump in the country’s property market, reports the South China Morning Post.
The Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said that in one case, a plot of land in Nanning, the capital of southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, was “sold” 18 times without ever actually changing hands.
The party’s top anti-corruption watchdog said the tactic allowed the city government to artificially shore up its fiscal revenue by RMB 2.83 billion ($416.2 million) in 2024. “Captivated by quick gains, some authorities engaged in accounting gimmicks to reflect substantial rises in fiscal revenue, masking actual budget strains”, the CCDI said in a document.