Join forces to combat corruption, APEC told

International commercial bribery activities should be cracked down on with firm resolution by relevant parties in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a senior anti-graft official said on Friday.

APEC members should cooperate in fighting commercial bribery, especially in such key areas as construction projects, land usage transfers, pharmaceutical sales and government purchasing, said Fu Kui, deputy head of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention.

"Commercial bribery is a cancer to the society, which violates the basic principle of a market economy and destroys the market order, and it offers corruption opportunities to government workers," he said.

He made the remarks in Beijing during an anti-graft seminar attended by 86 senior officials from 21 APEC members and other international bodies including the World Bank.

Fu called on APEC members to enhance law enforcement and punish corrupt activities relating to international commercial bribery.

The members should share information about various crimes, retrieve criminals' assets and support each other in investigations, lawsuits and trials, he said.

Huang Shuxian, minister of supervision, said at the seminar that Chinese authorities have punished not only domestic companies for bribery activities in foreign countries but also overseas companies involved in bribery cases in China.

He called on APEC members to do further research on how to jointly fight international commercial bribery.

The Chinese government has been actively cooperating with other countries to arrest fugitive corrupt officials and fight international commercial bribery, Huang said.

About 102,000 commercial bribery cases involving 26.06 billion yuan ($4.24 billion) were investigated by Chinese authorities from July 2005 to December 2011 during a campaign to fight commercial bribery, according to statistics of the Ministry of Supervision.

In May, Chinese police completed a bribery investigation of GlaxoSmithKline China and handed over the case to prosecutors. After 10 months of investigating, the police alleged that Mark Reilly, a British national and manager of GSK China, had ordered his subordinates to offer bribes. The case involves a total of 46 suspects.

To boost sales and squeeze out rival companies, GSK China allegedly bribed doctors to prescribe their products, according to the Changsha Public Security Bureau, which was in charge of investigating the case.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn