Xi Stresses Real Economy, Scolds Fake Data: Eye on Chinese Media

(Bloomberg) -- President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that the real economy is the foundation for China achieving economic growth and getting an upper hand in international economic competition, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Xi made the remarks to the delegation of Liaoning province, which has admitted faking fiscal data, as the legislature held its annual session. Top leaders have lowered the growth target as focus shifts to easing financial risk.

• "This must be throttled," said Xi after Liaoning's party chief briefed him about the data fraud in recent years, Xinhua reported in another story. Officials from the rust-belt province have said they fabricated fiscal data from 2011 to 2014. Xi told the delegation to "squeeze out the water in the figures" and be "frank and forthright" when delivering data, state broadcaster China Central Television reported.
• Baidu Inc. Chief Executive Officer Robin Li wrote in the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper that China must grab a "strategic opportunity" to get an edge in artificial intelligence. China is on the same level as other leading nations in the field. Policy makers said in the work report that AI is one of the emerging industries where development will be accelerated. 
• Chinese individual investors are more "conservative" this year, and insurance has become one of the most popular products, a CCTV survey showed. People in smaller cities generally feel happier than their peers in the metropolises, and more than half of respondents said health is the most important factor affecting their perception of happiness.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Miao Han in Beijing at mhan22@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Malcolm Scott at mscott23@bloomberg.net, Jeff Kearns, Andrew Davis

With assistance from Miao Han