In my view...

...this practice of Chinese government authorities incentivizing all kinds of mendacious behavior is endemic, and taking a literal "statistics on the table" view of their official figures would be madness.

Full article here, but suffice to say another example of illusory growth.

"With 50 million yuan worth of products, a firm could create the illusion of several billion yuan worth of trades," a source familiar with the practice said. "Then it could borrow several billion yuan from overseas banks, and move the funds freely through trades under the current account."

Some overseas loans have been channeled to domestic banks' wealth management plans, which offer yields higher than the borrowing cost. With the right bet on the offshore yuan Non-deliverable Forward, a futures contract, the borrowing company also stands to benefit from yuan appreciation.

Reining in trade-based currency arbitrage could be difficult, the Shenzhen government official said. Take rough gold processing for example. Customs is in no position to stop the business because simple processing is a legal business in bonded areas, he said.

But SAFE's tougher forex requirements may have begun to bite. One trader in Shenzhen's Futian bonded area said his company stopped faking imports and exports. Banks have halted financing to re-export businesses, a banker familiar with the situation said.