Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng said Wednesday that the municipal authorities will draw lessons from the social security fund scandal and improve government service and responsibility.

The mayor, also acting Communist Party chief of Shanghai, made the remarks at a panel discussion of legislators from the metropolis during the annual full session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.

The municipal government has set the goal of building "a government of services, a government with responsibility and a government ruled by law" through better supervision over administration and the improvement of political system, said Han.

Han said Shanghai gained good economic and social development last year with the resolute implementation of the macro-economic control policies of the central government and with the unswerving efforts to fight corruption.

"The year of 2007 is of great importance for Shanghai as we are faced with many chances as well as challenges, even difficulties. But Shanghai will surely maintain its growth trend in economic and social development so long as we follow the requirements of the central government to make renovations in our work," he said.

Involving 3.7 billion yuan (US$474 million), the Shanghai social security fund scandal was revealed to the public last year. It led to the downfall of over a dozen senior officials and business people including Chen Liangyu, former secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of Communist Party of China (CPC), and Qiu Xiaohua, former head of the National Bureau of Statistics.

The Shanghai CPC Commission for Discipline Inspection and Shanghai Commission of Supervision announced last week that another nine Shanghai officials involved in the scandal had been expelled from the CPC and their governmental posts and they would face criminal charges.

Mayor Han Zheng said in January this year that the city had retrieved all the money siphoned from the Shanghai social security fund for illicit loans and investments last year.

(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2007)