国内英语新闻:Chinese officials stress Party leadership, anti-corruption drive in state-run firms

BEIJING, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- State-run companies in China should stick to the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Vice President Xi Jinping said Monday.

    Xi made the remarks at a meeting held here to promote Party building in China's state-run enterprises.

    Party building lay at the core of the competitiveness of state-run enterprises, Xi said, adding that "the CPC's leadership over the enterprises should be upheld unswervingly... in order to help enterprises retain scientific development".

    Li Yuanchao, head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, said at the meeting that bosses of the state-run companies headquartered in Beijing should increase the Party organs' involvement in the companies' decision-making process.

    Party organs should participate in the process of the state-run companies' major decisions made by the companies' board meeting to ensure that they could play supervising functions, Li said.

    Meanwhile, He Yong, deputy secretary of CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), urged the bosses of the country's state-run companies to be cleanhanded.

    Restrictions and supervision over power should be intensified for the main leaders of the companies, He said, adding that the anti-corruption effort inside the state-run companies was an important part of the mechanism's construction.

    The state-run companies' bosses should also enhance their discipline education and loyalty to the Party, the official said.

    The anti-corruption effort in the state-run companies came after former chairman of Sinopec Chen Tonghai was sentenced to death last month with a two-year reprieve for taking huge bribes.

    Chen took about 195.73 million yuan (28.66 million U.S. dollars) in bribes from 1999 to June 2007 by taking advantage of his positions in Sinopec, one of the country's major oil refiners.

    Also present at Monday's meeting was Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, who stressed that the top priority of state-run enterprises at the moment was to maintain steady and relatively fast development.