With the crackdown on commercial corruption entering its third year, money-for-power favors and corruption that affects common people remain top concerns.

The pledge to protect citizen's interests was made by Vice-Minister of Supervision Li Yufu, who is also deputy director of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China's leading group on combating commercial bribery.

Speaking at a press conference in Beijing yesterday, Li said this year the campaign would focus on punishing officials who used their position to extract bribes, and the creation of "a lasting mechanism" to curb what he described as a "destabilizing factor in society".

Li admitted that commercial bribery is still rampant in some areas of China despite years of government efforts to stamp it out. "It has even become a hidden rule in some places that a business cannot be successful without bribery," he said.

Official figures show that China handled 10,883 commercial corruption cases last year, involving 3.77 billion yuan ($486million). Of them, about 20 percent directly involved government employees.

The major targets included construction projects, land transfer deals, property rights trades, drug sales, government procurement, and resource exploitation.

Bank loans, securities and insurance business, telecom and electricity operations, quality supervision and environmental protection are also areas that see more corruption, according to the ministry.

Li said these areas would remain under close watch this year, and reiterated that enterprises and individuals involved in bribery would be punished severely and have their names added to a blacklist.

The vice-minister also said efforts would be made to further promote "self-inspection" activities to fight bribery.

Ministry figures show that more than 2.6 million enterprises and government departments have had such "self-inspections", recovering 417 million yuan ($53.7 million) of illegal earnings since China started them in 2005.

To create a healthy market and better the supervision mechanism are also key to a successful campaign, Li said, calling for the establishment of effective anti-corruption measures within enterprises and government departments.

(China Daily 02/16/2007 page2)