Corruption rife in real estate industry, inspections find

Excessive corruption in real estate was found during routine inspections of official conduct nationwide, China Economic Weekly reported on Tuesday.

In four rounds of routine inspections of official conduct since 2013, 19 provincial officials involved with 34 provincial-level regions, departments and units were investigated by the end of July. Among these, many had links with the real estate industry.

Meanwhile, 20 of 21 provinces were found to have corruption in the real estate industry.

As one of the major departments responsible for the real estate industry, the Ministry of Land and Resources was found to be lax in regulation and punishment.

Experts urged the ministry to enhance its regulation of land transition, which they said should help curb such corruption.

Wang Qishan, China's anti-graft chief, said on July 16 that the inspections' major goal is to curb corruption, and anti-graft work will focus on six areas of corruption: mine resources, land transition, real estate development, construction projects, funds to improve livelihood and special allocations.