China proposes to improve its statistical analysis and monitoring system used to ascertain the country's international payments, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said Tuesday on its website. .

Li Dongrong, SAFE's deputy chief said the move was designed to make their statistics more accurate and reliable for macroeconomic analysis and decision-making purposes.

SAFE is also trying to collect additional data by conducting more surveys and exchanging information with other relevant departments, Li told a symposium held at Dalian, a coastal city in northeast China's Liaoning Province.

He said SAFE continued to improve its method of compiling international payment statistics in order to make the figures more accurate and transparent.

Since China's entry into the World Trade Organization the flow of international capital had become more frequent and complicated requiring greater accuracy and efficiency in reporting statistics.

Since last year SAFE has published semi-annual reports on China's balance of international payments. In May this year it published the first report on the balance of China's overseas investments.

However, Li said SAFE was facing increasing challenges as a result of China's ever expanding and evolving economic relations with the rest of the world. He said overseas capital had engaged with the Chinese economy in more complicated and flexible forms.

This year two issues had drawn wide public concern over China's international payments statistics system. One was the billion-dollar difference between SAFE's figures on foreign investment in China in 2005 and statistics produced by the Ministry of Commerce. The other was the embarrassing lack of authentic figures on foreign capital entering the country's property market amid calls for the imposition of tighter controls.

Attendees to the Dalian conference included experts from the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements, SAFE, the People's Bank of China and the Ministry of Commerce.

(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2006)