China has beefed up the anti-corruption and discipline work since the country adopted the reform and opening-up policy 30 years ago, official sources said.

To ensure major policies of the central government to be faithfully implemented at various levels, the Ministry of Supervision (MOS), working with other relevant departments, has severely cracked down on defiant activities.

In October 2006, for example, the MOS and the Ministry of Land and Resources launched a campaign to overhaul cases involving the illegal use of land nationwide. As of June this year when it was concluded, 3,733 officials were punished, of whom 2,393 were prosecuted.

Government officials and heads of state-owned enterprises were punished for abuse of power or dereliction of duty. A campaign cracking down on these people buying shares in coal mines launched since August 2005 has punished 148 involving 709 million yuan (103 million U.S. dollars).

To further curb corruption, the departments of supervision and land and resources have introduced public bidding mechanism for land use and mining rights since 2004.

China now has 3,224 supervision and discipline departments at various levels with 360,000 staff.

In last September, the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention was set up, which helped further beef up the country's anti-graft efforts.

(Xinhua News Agency October 10, 2008)