Since 1999, local government involvement has been responsible for 20 percent of the country's illegal land use cases, involving 60 percent of the total land area which has been exploited illegally.

The central government has sent officials to 12 provinces to whip local governments into line and defiant local officials have been criticized and punished.

Earlier this month, a land official in Zhengzhou, capital of Central China's Henan Province, was sentenced to five years in prison for taking bribes and approving irregular land deals.

In September, a senior official from Henan Province was sanctioned for failing to stop the construction of an unapproved university campus occupying nearly 1,000 hectares of land in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital.

In August, the central government criticized the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regional Government for failing to put a stop to an unauthorized power station project.

"The efforts have contained the increase of large-scale illegal land use and development, but have yet to reverse the trend," said Chang Jiaxing, vice director of the Bureau of Law Enforcement and Supervision with the Ministry.

"The situation will be improved remarkably if the inspection system can curb the unlawful practices of local governments," said Chang.

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