Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Tuesday urged tougher prevention and punishment on corruption, saying "China faced the toughest year in its economic development since the turn of the century."

Localities and departments should step up supervision over corruption, regulate the use of executive power, tackle persistent problems that harm public interest and accelerate construction of a system to prevent and punish corruption to provide a solid guarantee for reform, development and stability, Wen told a conference on clean governance.

"In the past year, various departments under the State Council and local governments at all levels made marked achievements in supervising administration power and promoting the building of clean government and the work against corruption."

"But corruption still occurred continually in some fields ... some officials' slack behavior severely damaged the government's image and relations between officials and the public," Wen said.

He urged tougher scrutiny over projects that were closely related to people's livelihood, such as water conservation, railroads and other forms of transportation, and urban construction.

Individuals or groups should be severely punished for making defective or harmful farm products or imposing unreasonable charges on farmers, students and patients, Wen said.

In addition, he called for strict supervision of officials' use of power to ensure that they did not use public investment projects for their personal benefit.

Wen said any construction of new government buildings, training centers and government hotels were banned between now and the end of 2010.

"The use of public cars and public funds for business trips aboard and reception fees should be strictly regulated," he said.

Reception expenditures this year should be reduced by 10 percent over 2008, car purchase and maintenance fees should be cut by 15 percent on the basis of the average amount in the recent three years, and expenditure for business trips abroad reduced by 20 percent based on the average amount over the recent three years.

Wen said, this year efforts will be focused on investigation and handling of corruption cases involving government organs and officials, and hard strike will be given to "collusion between officials and businesses, power-for-money deals and commercial bribery cases."

He urged officials to discipline themselves and "resolutely oppose bureaucratism and formalism."

Last year, China investigated 2,687 government officials for graft, malfeasance and infringement on people's rights. Those included four people at the province or ministry level, said Prosecutor-General Cao Jianming while delivering a report on the work of the Supreme People's Procuratorate earlier this month.

Cao said prosecutors last year investigated 10,315 cases of commercial bribery cases committed by government workers, involving a total sum of more than 2.1 billion yuan (309 million U.S. dollars).

(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2009)