The 7th Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Friday endorsed the decision by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to expel former Shanghai Party chief Chen Liangyu from the CPC.

The meeting approved the investigation report on Chen submitted by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).

The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee decided to expel Chen, 61, from the Party on July 26 after the CCDI's investigation into a social security fund scandal which surfaced last September. It was reported that 3.7 billion yuan ($510 million) in the city's pension funds was improperly invested.

Chen, dismissed from all government posts, is in detention awaiting trial on corruption charges. He is the highest-ranking official dismissed in a decade.

More than 10 business tycoons and government officials involved in the wide-ranging scandal have already received punishment since trials began in early June.

The meeting also endorsed the decision in April of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to expel Du Shicheng, former deputy Party secretary of the Shandong provincial committee, from the CPC.

Du, 57, also former Party secretary of the Qingdao municipal committee in Shandong, was expelled for taking huge amounts of bribes.

The CCDI, meanwhile, concluded its eighth plenary session on Friday in Beijing, which discussed the work report to be submitted to the CPC's 17th National Congress.

Anti-corruption is a "long-term, complicated and tough battle," said a communiqué released by CCDI after the meeting.

The CCDI will stick to the guidelines of curbing graft by using both penalties and preventive measures and focusing more on prevention while stemming corruption at the source by plugging loopholes in policies and systems, the document said.

(China Daily October 13, 2007)