TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s government will set up a third-party committee to look into the ensuing construction order data scandal and report on the findings within a month, Land Minister Tetsuo Saito said on Thursday.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday confirmed a report by the Asahi newspaper that the government had overstated the value of some construction orders received from builders for years, in a blow to the credibility of official statistics widely used by investors and economists.
Opposition lawmakers have grilled Kishida on the scandal in parliament with some questioning the validity of the government’s economic policy, as the data is used to compile Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) figures.
It is not the first time that issues have been raised about government data. Similar concern was voiced about a flaw in health ministry wage data found in 2018.
(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
