The Communist Party of China warned yesterday that the fight against corruption is "still arduous."

The statement comes a day after a senior Party official in booming Shandong Province was dismissed for misconduct, which follows the earlier high-profile firing of the Party chief in Shanghai.

The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee the Party's highest decision-making body warned members that "some outstanding problems that hurt the interests of the masses remain unsolved," and "the phenomenon of corruption is still quite serious," according to a Xinhua report.

Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and also the president, presided over the Politburo meeting, which pledged to continue to fight corruption and achieve clean governance, according to a CPC statement.

At the meeting, the CPC Central Committee for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the Party's top corruption watchdog, reported progress made this year and its efforts for next year.

It was agreed that the CCDI would hold its seventh plenary meeting next month.

"The Politburo urged the whole Party to remain unified in thinking and to have a deep understanding of the long-term, complicated and difficult nature" of the anti-corruption drive, according to the statement.

The anti-corruption campaign should be integrated into the country's economic, political and cultural programmes and the building of the Party, it said.

The government has been spearheading a campaign to stop rampant graft, and thousands of officials have been punished, and some executed, in the last several years.

On Sunday, it was announced that Du Shicheng, deputy provincial Party secretary in Shandong, had been fired for misconduct. Xinhua said he committed a "serious discipline violation."

Du also lost his post as Party secretary of Shandong's key coastal city, Qingdao, the venue of yachting events for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In Shanghai, the city's Party secretary, Chen Liangyu, was dismissed in September in connection with the scandal over alleged misuse of more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.27 billion) in pension funds.

Earlier this year, the vice-mayor of Beijing, who oversaw Olympic and related construction projects, was fired for what was later described as "quite serious" wrongdoings.

Last year, 115,000 Party members, or 0.16 per cent of the total, received disciplinary punishment.

Of them, 11,071 were expelled from the Party and 7,279 referred to the judicial authorities for criminal investigation, according to an earlier Xinhua report.

Source: China Daily