Five ranking officials in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province were removed from their posts on Sunday.

Four of them resigned and the other one was removed after a document was issued earlier this month by the Heilongjiang Provincial People's Congress.

In the document, Zhang Qiuyang, former secretary-general of the Heilongjiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, was dismissed from his post.

The resignations were accepted by the Standing Committee of the Heilongjiang People's Congress on Sunday.

The four people to have resigned are Fu Xiaoguang, vice-governor of the province, Fan Guangju, vice-director of the Standing Committee of the 10th Heilongjiang People's Congress, Xu Yandong, president of the High People's Court of Heilongjiang Province and Xu Fa, procurator-general of the Heilongjiang People's Procuratorate.

"To discharge so many high-level officials at one time is unprecedented in the province's history, and perhaps even rare in the whole country," commented an official from the Heilongjiang People's Congress, who declined to be named.

In the meantime, two new vice-governors of the province, Li Zhanshu and Liu Xueliang, were given their new posts on Sunday. Nan Ying and Jiang Wei, were appointed to be the acting president of the Heilongjiang High People's Court and the acting procurator-general of the Heilongjiang People's Procuratorate.

Among the removed officials, Fu was once the director of the Provincial Communications Bureau and was in charge of forest industry and tourism after he became vice-governor in 2003.

All the other four officials were once the mayor or Party secretary of cities in Heilongjiang Province.

No reason has yet been given for such a large-scale removal from office.

"Although the Standing Committee of the People's Congress, the People's Government, the High People's Court and the People's Procuratorate have different areas of responsibilities, they have the same goal to serve the reform and development of Heilongjiang Province," Provincial Party Secretary Song Fatang told the conference.

(China Daily October 12, 2004)