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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (4521)	3/8/2005 11:26:40 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

Swollen bureaucracy blamed for rampant graft March 8, 2005 Communists swept to power pledging to end imperial-style bureaucracy but the country now has a vastly higher ratio of officials to common people than it did under the last emperor, Xinhua said Monday. About 46 million of the country's 1.3 billion people collect government paychecks, leading to spiralling national expenses and widespread corruption, Xinhua said. ``Every 26 ordinary citizens in China have to support one official, while spending on government cars, reception fees and official training or tours abroad has reached a whopping amount,'' Ren Yuling, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference now in annual session along with the National People's Congress, was quoted as saying. That ratio had grown from 1:40 just a decade ago and was 35 times greater than in the final years of the swollen Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Ren added. Corruption, which led to the downfall of the Qing and several other dynasties, was virtually wiped out in the years after the puritanical communists came to power in 1949, but has staged a comeback in the wake of economic reforms introduced in the late 1970s. ``The contingent of bureaucrats in China is expanding at an unprecedented speed, which is a quite worrisome phenomenon,'' Ren was quoted as saying. The booming bureaucracy led to a massive waste of money, with spending on government cars, reception fees and training tours totalling around 750 billion yuan (HK$707 billion) each year, as well as increasing cases of abuse of power, selling of ranks and other forms of corruption, he added. Top leaders have been calling for greater efforts to crack down on graft as part of a larger campaign to bridge a yawning wealth gap that has sparked regular protests across the country. Authorities investigated more than 43,000 officials and punished nearly 3,000 for corruption last year, domestic media has said. REUTERS thestandard.com.hk