Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Corruption in China has grown by leaps and bounds during its economic reform period and is threatening the legitimacy of the communist government, a leading global economic organisation said today.

Corruption represented between 3.0 and 5.0 per cent of China's GDP, or between 409 and 683 billion yuan in 2004, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a report.

"There were big increases in corruption from 1987-1992 which was linked to the transition process of the economy," Janos Bertok, co-author of the report, said. "For the rest of the 1990s the level of corruption did not let up. . . .  As China's economy grows the opportunities for corruption also grow."

The government is keenly aware of the problem to its legitimacy and was trying not only to punish corrupt officials but also build a system that prevents graft, he said.

From 1993 to 1997, Chinese authorities investigated 387,352 cases of corruption involving 54,805 officials, the report said, citing Chinese statistics.

The report was published during an international symposium on the 'Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific' that is currently underway and that was co-sponsored by the Asian Development Bank, the OECD and the Chinese government.

China was eager to host the meeting to establish better cooperation with other nations as it seeks to extradite corrupt officials who have fled aboard with vast sums, Frederic Wehrle, coordinator of the OECD anti-corruption initiative and co-author of the report, said.

China has extradition treaties with 19 countries, but not with Canada and the United States where many officials have fled, he said.

In the first half of 2003 alone more than 8,300 officials fled the country and another 6,500 disappeared within China to escape prosecution for corruption and embezzlement.

"Roughly two-thirds of the fugitives were senior executives of state-owned enterprises [and] between US$ 8.75 billion and US$ 50 billion were supposedly brought out of the country in recent years," the report said.

"Corruption committed by public servants or the political elite is seen as seriously endangering the stability of the government and of the CPC [Chinese Communist Party] . . . [but] it remains uncertain whether or not China's efforts to combat corruption and bribery [will] bear fruit."