China's banking watchdog said Monday it had punished 799 staff members of the country's Big Four state banks after finding they were involved in illegal or unauthorized business totaling as much as 588.5 billion yuan (about US$73 billion).

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said in a report the wrongdoers were working in 103 different-level institutions of the Big Four, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of China. It checked a total of 14,039 such institutions.

The news came as China struggles to overhaul the Big Four by building them into joint-stock firms, inviting foreign strategic investors and then listing them on the market. Under a commitment to the World Trade Organization, the country must give foreign rivals full access to its financial market by the end of 2006.

The Construction Bank of China has already gone public in Hong Kong, while the Bank of China is widely forecast to sell shares to private investors in the coming year.

On Monday, the CBRC acknowledged that while the state banks are making progress in building up corporate governance, "illegal cases, including big cases, are still frequently seen."

Calling 2006 a "key year" for financial reform, it urged the Big Four, which account for more than half of the country's deposits and lending, to "tide over the difficulties" and promote the banking industry's healthy, stable expansion.

(Xinhua News Agency December 27, 2005)