China has improved transparency of village affairs, including financial information, in about 95 percent of the 680,000 villages on the mainland, a senior civil affairs official has said.
Chen Jiechang, vice minister of Civil Affairs, said about 60 percent of the villages in China had promoted transparency of their affairs in a standardized way.
Chen said that improving transparency of village affairs, labeled the Sunshine Project, together with efforts to promote grassroots institutions and self-government by villagers, should be part of an important mechanism to improve democratic management in rural areas and supervision over rural officials.
A meeting on promoting transparency of village affairs was told last week that computers and closed circuit television systems had been used in some developed parts of rural China to publicize village matters deemed important by village congresses, including expenditure and revenue.
Officials said the transparency campaign had proved helpful infighting corruption in village committees, which were in charge of village affairs, and reducing abuse of village resources.
(Xinhua News Agency June 17, 2003)
