Companies and individuals who have been convicted of corruption in Shanghai or any other city in six eastern provinces will find it difficult to do business.

Shanghai's prosecutorate's office signed an agreement last month with its counterparts in Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Fujian and Shandong on sharing a single database of people convicted of corruption, Ju Guangjian, a divisional head of the municipal people's procuratorate, said.

Individuals and companies will be able to check whether their clients or employees have previous corruption records. The procedure will only take 10 minutes, Ju said.

"Such a system will effectively curb corruption in the future," he said.

Many prosecutors' offices in the country have established individual databases.

In January 2006, Shanghai established its database for public use.

On the first day of its operation, a multinational hospital group checked the details of a person selling medical equipment. It found he had been convicted of giving 430,000 yuan ($63,000) in bribes.

Since then, the procuratorate has received 167 requests from 872 companies and 426 individuals. Five companies and individuals have lost their businesses or jobs for corruption.

But with more cross-region businesses being conducted, people convicted of bribery in one city go to another where they cannot be detected.

With this in mind, Shanghai and the six provinces decided to share their database.

(China Daily October 16, 2008)