A State-level agency specializing in graft prevention could begin operating this year.

Besides tacking corruption at the source, Chen Cangzhi, vice-minister of supervision, said the new bureau would also publicize anti-corruption information and educate government officials.

Xia Zanzhong, deputy secretary to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, was quoted as saying by the Beijing Times yesterday that the new agency has been given go-ahead.

The new institution, which responds directly to the State Council, would help fulfill China's commitments to the UN Convention Against Corruption, which the country signed in 2005.

The UN General Assembly adopted the convention in 2003.

Bureau units would be established at the provincial level.

Currently, anti-corruption bureaus are affiliated to the prosecutors' offices, the discipline committees and the supervision bureaus.

Experts suggest that incohesive anti-graft efforts would waste the country's judiciary resources and reduce the ability to combat corruption.

"A government agency which orchestrates all political and judicial resources to fight corruption is definitely needed," said Li Chengyan, a professor of the administration of public affairs at Peking University.

Li said it was likely the agency would be made up of officials from the Ministry of Supervision, the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Some NPC deputies and CPPCC members attending the current session of the 10th National People's Congress have proposed a specific anti-corruption law.

According to Xia, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Supervision Ministry have spent a long time researching the feasibility of a specific anti-corruption law but have not yet decided when to put forward the law before the standing committee of the NPC.

(China Daily 03/14/2007 page8)