The institute was established to implement the strategy denoted by President Jiang Zemin on training 300,000 Chinese certified public accountants, said Zhu.

He pointed out that training qualified accounting personnel with decent professional ethics is crucial for the country's market-oriented economic development and the modernization drive.

Zhu, in the company of Wang Zhongyu, the State Councilor and secretary-general of the State Council, and the ministers of education and finance, inspected the advanced educational facilities of the school.

The Premier said that one of the prominent problems in the current economic life is the making of fake accounts, which is closely related to such crimes as graft, bribery, tax evasion and embezzlement.

Almost every corruption case exposed involves fake accounts, which has become a "tumor" threatening the country's economic order, he noted.

The institute should be a base for training senior administrative executives and elite accountants serving at key macro-economic planning departments and leading state-owned companies, the Premier said.

He stressed that reliable accounting is the basis for scientific enterprise administration and policy-making for the country's macro-economic planning.

Zhu reiterated that all financial managers in large and medium- sized state-owned companies should go through training at the institute and meet the standard requirement.

He asked the institute to spare no effort or funds to invite first-class professors from home and abroad to ensure the quality of teaching.

(People's Daily October 30, 2001)