Experts: Construction Data Inflated By Up To 5 Tril. Yen A Year
A panel of experts investigating the Japanese government's mishandling of data related to construction orders has issued its findings.
It estimates that the land ministry inflated the orders by as much as 5.1 trillion yen, or 39 billion dollars, annually over an eight-year period.
The data is a component of Japan's gross domestic product.
The ministry collects the statistics from construction companies nationwide on monthly orders. They are used to track industry trends.
It was revealed late last year that the ministry had double-counted the numbers for years.
The panel examined paper questionnaires covering fiscal 2020. Some of the sheets for the previous years had been discarded.
The data on construction orders may have inflated the government's comprehensive building statistics by up to around 0.6 percent. The experts, however, believe the impact on the country's official GDP figures is slight.