Corruption cases involving Chinese officials accepted by procuratorial organs have declined by about five percent a year since 2003.

Wang Zhenchuan, Deputy Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), said on Thursday that official corruption was declining after increasing strikes on official crimes.

Reports from informants to procuratorial organs had also declined gradually, Wang added.

Procuratorial organs investigated and discharged 196,604 officials in 169,159 cases related to capital embezzlement, bribery and malpractice from 2003 to June of 2007, according to the SPP.

The figures in 2003 were 39,562 cases with 43,490 official suspects, 37,786 cases with 43,757 suspects in 2004 and 35,028 cases with 41,447 suspects in 2005 and 33,668 cases with 40,041 suspects in 2006.

The investigations had retrieved economic losses of 23.82 billion yuan (about 2.97 billion U.S. dollars), it said.

More than half of the official corruption cases were embezzlement of public funds involving more than 60,000 officials and bribery concerning 40,000 officials from 2003 to 2006.

Cases of infringement of individual rights accounted for three percent of the total, power abuse 5.3 percent, malpractice seven percent, and misappropriating public funds 5.5 percent.

Among the discharged officials, 11,223 held positions at county level or above, including 29 provincial and ministerial officials.

"The more effective measures we take to investigate and deal with official corruption, the fewer officials crimes occur," said Wang.

Editor: Donald