Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has called on various localities and departments to step up anti-corruption measures and try best to keep officials at various levels upright and incorruptible.

All localities and departments should combat commercial bribery as the key part of the country's anti-corruption work this year, said Wen at a national conference on building honest and clean governments, which was convened on Feb. 24.

"Bribery has poisoned the ethos of administrative, industrial and social practices and has become a plague, which should be tackled with firm and effective measures," he said.

According to Wen, commercial bribes in engineering projects, land acquisition, property trading, medicine purchase and government procurement deserve special attention.

Irregular, unethical transactions that go against market rules by companies and intermediaries should be firmly rectified and bribery cases should be handled with special efforts, said the premier.

Wen said the commercial bribery must be effectively curbed and market order, company activities and administrative power should be further rectified.

The country should also accelerate the building of a special mechanism that will work effectively against commercial bribes, he said.

Commercial bribes in commercial transactions are closely linked with abuse of power by government departments and officials, which will never be tolerated and will be severely punished, said Wen.

To prevent such bribes, the country will enhance the construction of the country's commercial ethics system in order to promote a commercial culture that is healthy and sound, the premier said.

According to Wen, China will take tough efforts in fighting against commercial bribes, and solve prominent problems that hurt the interests of the masses.

"We'll work hard to achieve fresh results in the process of combating corruption," Wen promised, adding the work of anti-corruption is an important guarantee for the government to fully carry out its functions.

Source: Xinhua