Watchdog allows officials to engage in stock trading
Officials are allowed to engage in stock trading as long as they follow Party rules, China's top disciplinary watchdog said on Wednesday.
"Party and government officials are allowed to trade in stocks and securities, but such practices should abide by relevant laws and regulations," said Zhongguo Jijian Jiancha Bao, a newspaper run by the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China, stressing that officials who engage in stock trading will only be punished if they violate Party rules.
The newspaper said seven types of stock trading practices are forbidden by current Party rules, including forcing companies to sell stocks to officials, using public funds for stocks purchases and engaging in insider trading.
"The anti-corruption campaign is not targeting officials' legitimate wealth but rather those who violate discipline rules and engage in corruption through stock trading," Zhuang Deshui, an anti-graft expert at Peking University, told the Global Times, adding that stock trading-related corruption has flourished in recent years.
Over 2 billion yuan in public funds have been embezzled for financial products, including stocks in recent years, the Economic Information Daily reported.
Several officials have recently been punished for illegal stock trading, including Liu Shufan, an official of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, who abused his position by receiving bribes worth millions of yuan to secure an approval for a public company and help grow its shares, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
