China's serious crime rate was down in the first half of the year, the Ministry of Public Security announced on Tuesday.

Bomb attacks were down 27.2 percent, murders down 9.1 percent and arson down 7.9 percent, said Wu Heping, spokesman of the ministry, at a press conference.

Cases of theft remained at the same level as the previous year, with the number totaling 1.45 million.

Some 46,000 cases related to drugs and gambling were recorded, down 8.9 percent.

The country's police authorities have investigated more than two million crime cases in the first half of 2007, of which about 920,000 have been solved.

However, the number of economic crimes in China increased by 10 percent to 36,000 during the first half of 2007.

"A total of 1,247 crimes involved production of fraudulent and shoddy products, up 24.3 percent on the same period of 2006," said Wu.

China also reported 3,695 financial fraud cases and 558 smuggling cases, up 14.3 percent and 23.7 percent respectively. The number of intellectual property rights piracy cases reached 1,094, up 2.7 percent.

Cases involving fraudulent mobile phone text messages were also on the rise.

"We found some criminals from Taiwan had colluded with those on the mainland to conduct fraud crimes through mobile phone short messages, and most of them were based in southeast China's Fujian Province," Wu said.

Almost every mobile phone user in China has received text messages involving financial fraud, smuggling and pornography. One of the most common is telling the mobile phone owner that his or her bank card has been used and asking for his or her personal information.

Wu said victims of the fraudulent text messages have been found overseas, including the Republic of Korea, southeast Asian countries and Europe. And the criminals' bases have moved from Fujian Province to other places on the mainland.

(Xinhua News Agency August 14, 2007)