economy - The magical NPL's, up or down?

The newly established banking regulator, The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has announced that the average non-performing loands of China's banks has dropped over five percent points since the beginning of 2003 to 17.8 percent at the year end, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Very soon the National People's Congress will convene and different regulators have to deliver figures, even though it is very hard but to give an educated guess on what is happening in for example the banking industry.
Already the starting point was different. Officially the banks claimed a NPL-ratio of 25 percent, while the estimations of independent organizations hoovered between 40 and 50 percent, an assesment that was underwritten by the minister Xiang of financiance at the end of 2002.
Also the WSJ wonder whether the growth of the NPL's - potentially a larger issue than the current size of the bad loans - is under control or not. We do not know, the banks do not know. the regulators do not know. They can only pray and send our their investigators.