BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese Procurator-General Jia Chunwang pledged to step up efforts in 2004 to prevent and deal with job-related crimes and bring the anti-corruption campaign into depth.

    In a report on the work of the Supreme People's Procuratorate to the ongoing parliament session, Jia urged procuratorates at all levels to focus their efforts on such major cases as bribery of government officials, administrative and judicial personnel and official umbrellas for organized criminal gangs as well as job-related crimes in the reform of state-owned enterprises, contracting for engineering projects, the leasing of land use rights and financial affairs.

    Moreover, the procuratorates will strictly deal with job-related crimes such as infringement of right of person, democratic rights and dereliction of duty that cause serious losses to the state interests and the life and property of the people, he said.

    He noted that China's public prosecution departments will increase regional and international cooperation in hunting for criminals who have fled the country.

    The procuratorates at different levels uncovered 39,562 job-related criminal cases, involving 43,490 people in 2003. The procuratorates raised public prosecution against 22,761 cases involving 26,124 people.

    The public prosecutors helped retrieve 4.3 billion yuan (about 518 million US dollars) from direct financial losses, Jia said.

    Over the past year, the procuratorates handled criminal cases involving 2,728 government officials at county-level or above, including 167 at the prefecture level and four at the provincial level.

    Meanwhile, procuratorates investigated 9,720 administrative lawenforcement and judicial personnel, uncovered 14,844 cases of embezzlement, acceptance of bribes, appropriation of public funds and dividing up in private of state property during the reform of state-owned enterprises, investigated 1,408 government functionaries who were suspected of illegal detention, extorting confession by torture and sabotaging elections, and brought to law7160 government officials for dereliction of duty and abuse of power. In addition, 596 job-related criminal suspects in hiding were rounded up. Enditem