China established the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention in 2007, which was created to intensify corruption fighting and conduct additional international exchanges in the field.

While lawmakers hailed the country's anti-corruption progress, they also admitted that the country still has a long way to go.

According to Hao Ruyu, vice president of the Beijing-based Capital University of Economics and Business and an NPC deputy, the lack of effective supervision against corruption has made the real estates, land management, finance and judiciary sector a hotbed for corruption.

China announced a four-trillion-yuan stimulus package to revitalize its economy, and how to prevent the planned package from falling prey to the corrupted has become a major focus of the China's anti-corruption cause.

Zhang Ping, director of the National Development and Reform Commission, told Xinhua the government has set up 24 inspection teams to make sure the money goes where it is intended to.

Guo Jiasen, chief procurator of the Shandong Provincial People's Procuratorate, said the prosecuting authorities had enhanced supervision on projects that concern people's well-being, infrastructure construction, and power conservation projects to prevent officials from taking advantage of their own jobs for personal gains.

The Communist Party of China also started a campaign to further improve education and supervision on officials in order to rule out power abuses.

When joining NPC deputies from the eastern Jiangsu Province on March 5, Chinese President Hu Jintao asked officials to "study earnestly, behave honestly and work with integrity."

While calling for severe punishment for those crooked officials who take advantage of their posts for personal gains, take bribes, and neglect their duties, lawmakers hailed Premier Wen Jiabao's proposal on Feb. 28 that public servants declare their assets as part of the country's anti-corruption campaign.

"We need to promote transparency of government affairs and also need to make public officials' assets," the premier said, "Only when power is restricted can corruption be prevented fundamentally."

Zhou Guangquan, an NPC deputy and a procurator in Beijing, said stepped-up anti-corruption efforts are key to China's economic development and its fight against the financial crisis.

"Corruption would add the cost of reform and development, and deprive people of their due interests, thus causing injustice and disputes in society," he said.

"It is essential that the country's prosecuting authorities take anti-corruption as their focus of work next year," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2009)