Two Shanghai men and one woman appeared in court yesterday after persuading people to sell their blood to help state-owned enterprises (SOEs) fulfill their donation quotas.

"But we cannot sue the SOE officials who approved these illegal donations as they did not gain any profit from it," said Xue Mingjian, a prosecutor from Shanghai Putuo District People's Procuratorate.

"I was paid 50-100 yuan (US$6-12) for each donor I found, and have earned several thousand from it," said Li Yaoming.

He, Zhao Xiong and Zhao Simei admitted organizing donations from people desperate for money between 2002 and 2004.

The SOEs involved took part so they could claim they had supplied the amount of blood requested of them from their workers each year.

According to Xue, the defendants made money by keeping part of the donation fees for themselves and now face up to 18 months in prison.

Zhao Xiong worked to contact potential enterprises that needed blood donations, the prosecutor said.

Zhao Simei admitted organizing 31 illegal donations from people pretending to work at Shanghai Grinding Wheel Works, from which she had retired.

The other SOEs involved include Shanghai Diesel Engine Company and the Putuo branch of the Agricultural Bank of China.

Song Qi, from the Shanghai Blood Center, said, "The planned voluntary donation system that requires government-owned work units to provide blood donations was a main source of our blood supply."

The Ministry of Health announced this February that planned voluntary donations from SOEs would be phased out over three years to eliminate illegal blood sales.

In the past these have been responsible for the rapid spread of HIV in some areas.

(China Daily April 5, 2005)