Billions missing from Chinas grain fund

14 October 1998

Billions missing from Chinas grain fund

BILLIONS of dollars are missing from Chinas state grain purchasing funds.

More than $25 billion (£14.6 billion) has disappeared from the fund over the past six years, the countrys auditors have found.

Managers of the governments grain agencies have sold produce at a loss and diverted money into real estate projects, stock market investments and personal luxuries, says a report in Chinas official newspaper, The China Business Times.

The government intends to address the problem by separating the work of state grain administrators from that of the grain sale companies.

It also hopes to separate the jobs of collecting, storing and distributing grain.