China has solved 76 commercial bribery cases related to large state-owned enterprises in an intensive inspection campaign, with about 18 million yuan (US$2.4 million) involved, according to the country's state-owned assets watchdog.

 

Sixty-six people have been given criminal punishments and 28 administrative penalties, said the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

 

The cases came to light after the commission ordered large state-owned enterprises to carry out self-inspection of commercial bribery between April and December last year.

 

Commercial bribery usually refers to bribes offered by companies to government officials or state-owned enterprises in exchange for special favors.

 

The campaign mainly targeted property right transfer, construction projects and material and equipment procurement, the commission said.

 

Property right transfer has been a major target in the fight against commercial bribery among state-owned enterprises in China.

 

"The self-inspection campaign reviewed all the 1,198 property transfers from the beginning of 2005 till the end of last year," said an official with the commission.

 

Last year, the commission and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued a notice to further regulate the approval of state-owned property right transfer and bottom prices.

 

In addition, regional state-owned assets watchdogs have sanctioned 65 property right trading centers in a bid to regulate property right transactions.

 

A monitoring system linking these trading centers with state-owned assets watchdogs in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin has been established to enable the watchdogs monitor all the transactions and unified release of property right transfer information in the future.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 13, 2007)