A senior official from the Ministry of Science and Technology said here Thursday that the ministry has introduced credit management to curb corruption in distributing state budgetary research funds.

Wu Zhongze, a vice-ministerial level official who oversees discipline inside the ministry, said an appraisal mechanism with expert consultation will be set up. In the long run, all national R&D projects should be under the credit management, which standardizes professional codes and activities in scientific research.

All parties concerned, including management officials, project contractors and expert appraisers, must be under supervision, Wu said. Their credit records would be taken into a nationwide-sharing computerized database.

Frequent violators to official regulations will be punished accordingly, he added.

Some officials from the ministry said that discreditable activities are now pervasive in the country, which is transformingitself from a planned economy to a market-oriented one.

Some bidders for national R&D projects fabricated technical andeconomic returns, some academic appraisers could not stick to fairness, and some intermediaries even played fouls in trading commercial profits, the officials said.

Source: Xinhua