China is looking to hold a nationwide audit of government land sales and related deals as part of President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive, according to a Reuters reports.

Citing the China-based weekly Economic Observer, Reuters reported that the National Audit Office is set to implement "rigorous" checks of funds from sales of land and land requisition that happened from 2008 to 2013 based on information from anonymous sources from the government.

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The audit is scheduled to be held this week, with the cabinet providing supervision. The initiative is expected to "disclose the rent-seeking and corruption phenomenon in various areas", it said.

The report noted that since Xi's anti-corruption campaign started, it has ensnared a growing list of public officials, many of which are linked with land deals.

Huge profits are realized from such transactions as local government procure the land from farmers at great discounts and re-sell these to be developed as commercial, residential or industrial properties. These  sometimes lead to social strife in rural areas as displaced farmers protest the actions. 

The report explained that land deals provide vital income to local governments, which are struggling to ease their debt burden that are estimated by the government to have already reached 17.9 trillion yuan or $2.9 trillion. Reuters cited the Economic Observer's report that revenues from land sales surged 45% in 2013 to a record 4.1 trillion yuan.

It added that more Chinese cities are relaxing property regulations to bolster the cooling market, which have been among the country's growth drivers as of late. The report said at least 30 regional governments have openly or quietly relaxed home purchase restrictions this year, citing data from CRIC, a unit of real estate services firm E-House China EJ.N.

Xi's anti-corruption campaign has been described as the broadest and most ambitious since Mao Zedong initiated his own government clean-up effort. A Bloomberg report in March  said that with powerful businessmen and government officials being implicated and charged with corruption, China's president is showing he is serious in rolling back the culture of bribery and graft that has hurt the government's legitimacy and puts the country's economic growth at risk.

TagsAnti-corruption, Audit