Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Wednesday (Feb. 16) that the government would redouble its anti-graft efforts this year though progress had been made in the fight against corruption in 2004.

At the State Council's third meeting on clean governance, Wen stressed that to establish a system that puts equal emphasis on punishment of corrupt officials and prevention of corruption, the government would focus on reforms in the following eight fields this year:

-- The government's policy-making system will be reformed and improved. This calls for a group decision-making system, a professional consultation and assessment system, a public hearing system and a responsibility system will be built up when major issues are concerned.

-- The administrative licensing system will be further reformed so as to simplify the procedure of administrative permit, cancel or adjust unnecessary or improper administrative licensing, and improve the government's work efficiency and services.

-- The reform of the financial management system will be stepped up, with emphasis placed on budget-based management in various government departments, and expand the scope and scale of government procurement.

-- The government investment supervision system will be improved, and supervision over major fields and projects such as communications and urban construction will be strengthened.

-- The supervision over state assets will be strengthened, especially that over state-owned financial institutions.

-- The land market will be further rectified. The procedure of land acquisition should be strictly obeyed and supervision on land leasing must be strengthened.

-- A responsibility system for administrative law enforcement will be established so that officials have both power and responsibility, use power under supervision, compensate for infringing upon others' rights, and are investigated for violation of law.

-- The government should improve its transparency and make public all administrative affairs that could be, so as to ensure the right of the people to know what the government is doing, especially when schools, hospitals, water, electricity and gas supply, and public transportation are concerned.

Work safety must be strengthened to safeguard the life of the people, the premier stressed.

On last year's progress in fighting corruption, Wen said the defaulted land acquisition compensation fee had been returned to farmers at large, most of migrant workers in the construction industry had obtained their defaulted salaries, the people, who lost money due to resettlement for urban construction, enterprise reshuffle and enterprise bankruptcy, had been somewhat compensated and comforted.

Meanwhile, unreasonable education charges were rectified to some extent, the arbitrary fees on farmers had been cut by a big margin, a large number of projects were freed from administrative permit with the implementation of the Administrative Licensing Law, and some corrupt officials were punished, he said.

Editor: Olivia