This is the third report carried in the Special Column, "Intensifying Anti-Corruption Efforts", which reads in full as follows:

According to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision, many regions and departments have in recent years conscientiously implemented the spirit of the Party's 15th National Congress, worked hard to explore effective ways for preventing and controlling corruption from its sources, actively but steadily pushed forward the government purchasing system, relatively marked results have been achieved in this work.

Government purchasing experimental work has thus far been carried out, to different degrees and with fairly good development momentum, in the country's 30 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities and cities with independent planning power. Various localities have generally attached great importance to this work and strengthened organization and leadership over it. Offices or special agencies in charge of government purchase have been set up in 29 provinces, municipalities and cities with separate plans throughout the country.

At present, the government purchasing scope has expanded from the purchase of goods to the service sphere. The government purchasing items of Zhejiang Province have developed from the earliest several varieties, such as teaching equipment and instruments to the present engineering expenditure on capital construction, the consumptive expenditures on the purchase of equipment, vehicles, and staple office articles, and labor service expenditures on conference reception, vehicle insurance and repair and housing maintenance. The purchasing items of Shenzhen City include 120 varieties in 11 categories, such as computers, property management, repair and renovation and landscape engineering. The purchasing method featuring public bidding and price ratio has generally been adopted for government purchase in various localities and has guaranteed the fairness of purchase. Various localities have paid attention to the establishment of government purchasing regulations and rules, so that government purchasing proceeds according to law, advances in a regular order and spread step by step. In line with the stipulations of the Interim Method for the Management of Government Purchase promulgated by the Ministry of Finance since April 1999, nearly 30 regions nationwide have drawn up and published rules and regulations on government purchasing. For instance, Yunnan Province has formulated detailed rules for provincial-level government purchase, methods for the management of invitation and submission of bids and a coordinating conference system, thus providing favorable conditions for implementation of government purchasing.

Although it is not long since the government purchasing system was put into practice in China, it has yielded fairly good results in promoting clean and honest government construction, saving financial funds and creating a good market competitive environment. First, through the fair, just and open public bidding method, the transparency of the purchasing activity has been enhanced, the defects as manifested in "camera obscure operation" and the claim for commission have been eliminated or reduced, institutionally, this helps block loopholes for the emergence of corruption. Second, it has helped strengthen management of funds and improve the utilization efficiency of financial funds. According to reports from various localities, institution of the government purchasing system has generally helped save around 10 percent of funds. Between January 1998 and August 1999, Shenzhen City had saved over 100 million yuan of financial funds through implementation of the government purchasing system. In the past 11 months since the Yunnan Provincial Government Purchasing Center was founded, it has saved 14.68 million yuan of financial funds. According to statistics from concerned departments, the local government purchasing scale was valued at 3.1 billion yuan nationwide in 1998, and funds saved totaled more than 0.4 billion yuan, with the average fund-saving rate standing at 13.38 percent. Third, it has helped enhance the sense of government functionaries as public servants and their sense of opposing extravagance and waste, and accelerate a change in concept and style of work. Government purchasing has led to a reduction in government operating cost and institutionally guaranteed implementation of the provisions of the Party Central Committee and the State Council concerning practicing strict economy and stopping extravagance and waste in Party and State organizations.