China had recovered 28.63 billion yuan (4.19 billion U.S. dollars) of embezzled funds over the first eight months this year, the National Audit Office (NAO) told Xinhua Tuesday.

Of the retrieved funds, 16.87 billion yuan had been turned into state revenue, 9.34 billion yuan returned to former funding channels, and 2.42 billion yuan was in the form of rescinded illegal government subsidies and allocations, the NAO said.

Auditors nationwide had conducted investigations on 51,840 government departments and produced 52.169 auditing reports by September this year, according to the NAO.

More than 26.77 billion yuan of embezzled public funds was retrieved last year, according to a report submitted by the NAO to the National People's Congress this April.

China's ruling Communist Party considers corruption a major threat to social stability and economic development, and makes unremitting efforts to fight it.

(Xinhua News Agency September 23, 2009)