Senior Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Wu Guanzheng on Sunday joined the country's political advisors from the health sector in a panel discussion and briefed them on the Party's graft fighting.

 

The Party's corruption watchdog will continue to target corruption, collusion between officials and businessmen, and commercial bribery, said Wu, head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC.

 

The advisors, or members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top advisory body, have convened to attend an annual session which opened on Saturday.

 

Wu, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, told the health advisors that more official attention will be given to the concerns of the public. In the meantime, officials should be made to improve their work ethics and promote a thrifty and clean lifestyle.

 

"Corruption should be prevented and uprooted together with the country's economic, political, cultural and social development and Party building," Wu said.

 

China's widely publicized anti-graft combat has led to the downfall of a number of high-profile corrupt officials over the past year.

 

In the health circle, Zheng Xiaoyu, former director of the State Food and Drug Administration, has been expelled from the Communist Party and given administrative penalty for taking advantage of the administration's drug approval power to obtain bribes and seek illegal profits for some drug companies.

 

Former Communist Party chief of Shanghai Chen Liangyu is under investigation for the city's social security fund scandal.

 

Since 2003, more than 67,000 government officials have been punished for corruption, with more than 17,500 prosecuted and sentenced in the first eight months of 2006, official figures showed.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2007)