APEC ministers agree on anti-corruption network

BEIJING (Xinhua) - The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministerial Meeting has decided to adopt an anti-corruption proclamation, and set up a law enforcement network to allow for cross-border cooperation in the anti-graft field.

Countries will step up collaboration in recovering assets that are illegally moved in a bid to further clamp down on graft cases in the region, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters Saturday at the end of the APEC ministerial meeting.

China is in the middle of a popular anti-corruption campaign that has promised to take down both high-ranking "tigers" and lowly "flies". The country is also seeking to widen the campaign to those who have fled abroad in what it called the Fox Hunt 2014 operation, to "block the last route of retreat" for corrupt officials.

Earlier reports quoted Alan Bollard, executive director of the APEC Secretariat, as saying that the anti-corruption proclamation adopted by APEC ministers had been pushed not only by China but also by the United States.

He added that the proposed anti-graft law enforcement network would see the establishment of a group that "could get the enforcement agencies together across the APEC region and allow them to pass on the information on particular cases with one another."