China's Ministry of Finance on Friday imposed an administrative penalty of 116 million yuan (about 16.35 million U.S. dollars) and a six-month business suspension on PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a global accounting firm, over its illegal auditing activities for property developer Evergrande Real Estate Group in 2018.
The penalties imposed by the ministry in accordance with the Law of the People's Republic of China on Certified Public Accountants, also include the confiscation of illegal gains and revocation of PwC's Guangzhou branch, and an administrative warning.
The Ministry of Finance has organized a special working team to conduct inspections on the practice quality of the Evergrande Group audit projects by PwC Zhong Tian LLP, the registered accounting entity and the main onshore arm of PwC in China, and its Guangzhou branch since January this year.
Regarding the responsibilities of PwC Hong Kong in providing audit services to Evergrande Group, the Ministry of Finance will actively coordinate and cooperate with the Hong Kong Accounting and Financial Reporting Council to investigate and deal with related illegal acts through the cross-border audit supervision cooperation mechanism.
Meanwhile, the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Friday announced an administrative penalty on PwC for failing to live up to its obligations in auditing annual reports and bond issuance of the Evergrande Group.
The commission announced the confiscation of PwC's revenue of 27.74 million yuan related to the Evergrande audit case and a fine of 297 million yuan, bringing the total to 325 million yuan.
China imposes fines, six-month ban on PwC over Evergrande illegal auditing work
China imposes fines, six-month ban on PwC over Evergrande illegal auditing work
China in 2024 saw a faster transformation and upgrading of investment in manufacturing industry, a strong growth of investment in high-tech industries, and a rebound of investment in infrastructure construction, according to the latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday.
The investment in manufacturing industry grew by 9.2 percent compared to the previous year, or six percentage points higher than the growth rate of overall investment. In particular, investment in technological upgrades of manufacturing industry increased by eight percent, or 4.8 percentage points higher than overall investment growth.
Private investment in manufacturing grew by 10.8 percent, driving up overall private investment by 5.3 percentage points.
The structure of investment continued to optimize. Investment in high-tech industries rose eight percent compared to the previous year, which was 4.8 percentage points higher than the growth rate of overall investment. In particular, investment in high-tech manufacturing grew by seven percent, and that in high-tech service industry grew by 10.2 percent. Investments related to high-tech industries, such as aerospace equipment manufacturing and professional technical services, increased by more than 30 percent.
In 2025, China plans to moderately increase central government budgetary investments, issue ultra-long-term special treasury bonds and local government special bonds, and enhance efforts to support projects for implementing major national strategies and building security capacity in key areas, as well as implementation of large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-in programs, with the aim of stimulating private investment activity through various measures, effectively leveraging government investment to drive social investment, improving investment efficiency, and promoting steady growth in investments.
Transformation, upgrading of China's manufacturing investment accelerates in 2024