The court said the 55-year-old Xu, formerly an alternate member of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and Party secretary of Ningbo, had "caused heavy losses to public property, and the interests of the state and people."

Xu was arrested on October 14 last year.

The Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court said Tuesday that when Xu was Party secretary of Ningbo, a major port in east China's Zhejiang Province, he supported illegal operation of a branch of the Ningbo International Investment and Trust Company, which resulted in a loss of 1.197 billion yuan (US$144.2 million).

During his time in office, Xu also authorized the Ningbo Daily to purchase a poorly constructed office building costing 180 million yuan (US$21.69 million). Staff at the newspaper have not been able to move into the building to date.

Xu also instructed the Ningbo branch of the Bank of China to provide loans, amounting to 25 million yuan (US$3.01 million) and US$5.4 million, to the unprofitable Ningbo Wuzhou Co., Ltd. The majority of the money was unable to be recovered because the company became insolvent.

(Xinhua 10/17/2000)