New rules have been introduced in China to prevent cinemas from engaging in fraudulent activities, such as manipulating box office figures.

The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, China's movie watchdog, confirmed on Wednesday that it has issued a circular with new rules to prevent box office fraud.

Earlier this month, the administrator issued a standard that defines how movie ticket sales should be managed to prevent theaters from avoiding tax payments. Many theaters have reportedly been falsifying the number of movie-goers and reporting artificially reduced ticket sales to avoid taxes.