A blacklist of all bribers convicted in east China's Zhejiang Province has been opened for public scrutiny Tuesday, said a spokesman with the province's procuratorate.

Government, companies and industry associations can refer to the blacklist, or a database of bribe cases, to see if their cooperation candidates have any record of bribery, said Xiu Hangsheng, chief of corruption crime prevention department of the provincial procuratorate.

"The inquiry, which is free, has to be made in the procuratorate and the inquirer needs to present valid identity certificates like an ID card or business license," he said.

Individuals also have access to the database, Xiu added.

"Zhejiang is the first province to have all the convicted bribers blacklisted in China." he said.

Foreigners and international companies convicted of bribery by a court in Zhejiang will also be listed in the database, said Xiu.

China's supreme procuratorate ordered that all provincial procuratorates should build bribery databases for public inquiry in 2006.

However, the databases only cover bribes in five industries: construction, education, finance, medical services and government procurement, Xiu said.

A total of 60,748 companies and 63,179 people made inquiries in the previous Zhejiang database of five industries. A total of 102 offenders were identified, according to statistics from the province's procuratorate.

In March 2009, a construction company was eliminated from a tender when the procuratorate of Beilun district of Ningbo City, upon the request of the tenderer, found its legal representative surnamed Lai was convicted of bribery in 2007.

Moreover, the bribery databases of Zhejiang and Shanghai are linked to each other so that inquiries can be made in either of the two places, Xiu said.

Currently, the bribery databases of most provinces are not related and people have to travel or write inquiry letters for cross-provincial inquiries.

Xiu said he expected all the bribery databases in east China's provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi and Shandong and Shanghai City to be connected within the year.

(Xinhua News Agency September 1, 2009)