China will promote the development of the social credit system in line with the law and regulations to prevent the abuse of the credit mechanism, said an official from China's top economic planner on Friday.

A clear legal basis is required to prevent the abuse of the social credit system, said Meng Wei, spokesperson for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Friday during a press conference. 

"What kind of dishonest behavior will be included in the credit record? To what extent will the bad behavior be included in the blacklist? What restrictions and punishments will be subject to the person or company after being included in the blacklist?" Meng said, describing what the NDRC will work on.

"The NDRC has noted that some local laws and regulations have incorporated behaviors that are not applicable to the punishment mechanism for dishonesty into personal credit records. The NDRC has corrected any such problems found," Meng said. 

Behaviors such as frequent job-hopping and playing music loudly on a subway have been reportedly incorporated into the personal credit record, which shows that the public is unfamiliar with misbehaviors that will be recorded in the social credit system, the People's Daily commented on Sunday.

The newspaper cited an example in July that a teacher in East China's Shandong Province was added to the social credit blacklist by the local education bureau for "having hit a truanting student with a textbook several months earlier." The teacher had already been sanctioned by the school. The additional punishment was quickly withdrawn because of public controversy. 

"The NDRC will pay more attention to publicity and interpretation of the definition of social credit to avoid misunderstanding and misreading. China will also accelerate the improvement of law and regulations on social credit to provide powerful guarantee and support for credit construction," Meng said.

China is constructing the world's largest social credit system, which will help the country restore social trust.

By the end of July, the total number of credit information on the sharing platforms nationwide has increased, with about 37 billion pieces of information collected, Meng said, as he gave a progress report on the system, which is still being constructed.

"China will strengthen the collection and sharing of credit information," Meng said. 

Credit China, a government website that provides open credit information for public access, has published about 197 million pieces of credit information on administrative licenses and administrative penalties. 

"China will also strengthen joint punishment for dishonesty," the spokesperson said. 

In July, a total of 639,200 entities were added to the penalty list, and 166,500 have been removed. Courts nationwide issued a list of 330,000 offenders subject to restrictions due to being blacklisted, including 2.56 million people who are banned from buying air tickets and 90,000 who are banned from traveling on high-speed trains. In addition, 150,000 people on the lost voluntarily fulfilled their legal obligations in July, according to data released on Credit China.

"The NDRC has been seeking opinions on integrating the individual income tax system into the credit system. Taxpayers who pay taxes in good faith should enjoy tax reduction dividends," Meng said.