Ten regions misused 2.69 billion yuan ($394 million) from an agriculture fund in 2007, of which 58 million yuan was spent on building houses and buying cars, the National Audit Office (NAO) said yesterday.

The money was taken out of a 350-billion-yuan special fund designated to accelerate agricultural development.

Apart from misused funds, about 4.6 billion yuan was mismanaged, the NAO said.

The 10 violators are: Henan, Gansu, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Hunan, Fujian and Shaanxi provinces, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Chongqing municipality.

(China Daily?May 21, 2009)