About 70 percent of the 342 corruption cases investigated by local prosecutors last year involved state-owned companies, Wu Guangyu, director of the Shanghai Municipal Prosecutors' Office, reported to the Shanghai People's Congress yesterday.

In a separate report to the congress yesterday, Teng Yilong, director of the Shanghai Higher People's Court, said local judges concluded 327 cases of corruption, bribery and malpractice last year. The cases involved 387 people, he said.

The SPC deputies will break into groups to discuss the two reports before voting to accept or reject them tomorrow.

"To carry out the anti-corruption policies set by the central government, we have been focusing on investigating a batch of severe corruption cases," said Wu.

He said more than 89 percent of the corruption cases investigated last year were severe, meaning they involved more than 50,000 yuan (US$6,024) in bribery or 100,000 yuan in embezzlement.

While Wu didn't say how much money was involved in the corruption cases concerning state-owned companies, he listed some of the most serious cases:

●Xu Fang, the former logistics director at the Waxie sub-branch of Shanghai Kangqiao Development Zone branch of China Agricultural Bank, took 880,000 yuan in bribes and embezzled 3.5 million yuan.

● Song Huoliang, the former deputy director of Minghang District's civil defense office, took 120,000 yuan in bribes.

● Chen Hanliang, the former manager of the personnel department of Pacific Mechanic and Electronic Group, embezzled more than 610,000 yuan - funds that should have been used for re-employment and retirement allowances.

The report didn't say what punishments were handed out in those cases.

Last year, the city's Higher People's Court accepted 144,500 corruption cases involving government and business leaders. That number accounts for 59 percent of all criminal cases accepted by the court last year and represents a 9.6 percent increase from 2002.

Among them, 142,400 cases were concluded, involving 4.46 million yuan in total.

Also yesterday, Gong Xueping, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai People's Congress, delivered a work report to the congress.

He said the committee intends to expand the number of issues the government holds public hearings on when drafting legislation, in a move to increase the level of democracy in Shanghai.

He also said the committee will strengthen its supervision of government work as well as that of the Higher People's Court and Municipal Prosecutors' Office.

"This year, we will solidify regulations that state the government has to report its major work to the committee," he said.

(Shanghai Daily January 15, 2004)