China has dealt with 21,889 cases of commercial bribery
involving 5.276 billion yuan (US$676 million) since it started a
clean-up campaign in 2005, according to the latest official
statistics.
"Good results have been achieved, but commercial bribery remains
a big problem in certain fields, with bribing methods harder to
detect," He Yong, head of a leading group of the central
authorities for handling commercial bribery, said at a national
work conference on Saturday.
"Most of the cases involve staff of government organs, who take
advantage of their job positions to seek illegal gains," said He,
also deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
The campaign against commercial bribery mainly targeted
construction projects, land transfers, property transactions,
pharmaceutical sales, government procurement contracts as well as
resources exploitation and sales, according to the conference.
Fields such as bank loans, publication distribution, sports,
environmental protection, and telecom and power industries were
also scrutinized.
He said the next step is to intensify investigations of civil
servants who take bribes during licensing, law enforcement and
court trial procedures.
He called on anti-bribery officials to devote more efforts to
investigating cases that trample on the public's vital
interests.
"The government will further open administrative affairs to
public scrutiny, and develop an effective long-term mechanism to
fight commercial bribery," he said.
Commercial bribery usually refers to bribes from companies and
often involves a firm paying money to government officials for
special favors.
(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2007)