China Charges State-owned Shipyard Ex-head with Taking Bribes

 

The former chairman of Chinese state-run shipyard Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding has been charged with taking bribes, prosecutors said on Friday, the latest official to be swept up in President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption crackdown.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate said in a notice on its website that Gu Tiquan, former board chairman of the Shanghai-based shipyard, would be prosecuted. It did not give details.

Hudong-Zhonghua is a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corp, one of the largest shipbuilding conglomerates in the country. The yard has been leading China's push into high-tech shipbuilding, and currently has contracts to build 14 liquefied natural gas tankers.

Calls to Hudong-Zhonghua for comment were not answered as the office was closed for the weekend while Reuters was unable to reach Gu for comment.

China's campaign against graft, which has ensnared officials across industries such as banking and energy, was extended to the shipping industry last November after it launched investigations into an executive at state-run China COSCO Holdings . (Reporting by Brenda Goh; editing by Nick Macfie)