A vice mayor in east China's Zhejiang Province had been arrested for a bribery charge in land-for-money exchanges, local authorities said on Tuesday.

Xie Weixing, Shaoxing City vice-mayor, allegedly accepted bribes in exchange for approving a housing project when he held the post of party secretary of the city's Xinchang County, police said, without giving the amount of the money.

Xie, 53, was arrested by the Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department on Sunday, police said. He was promoted to be Shaoxing vice-mayor in 2003.

He played a key role in ensuring the Xinchang-based Fengdao Group, a leading local company, won the bid for a nearly 90,000-square-meter block of farming land, according to the People's Procuratorate of Zhejiang Province.

The Group started real estate development on the land after the bidding. Xu Xiaofang, its chairman of the board, had been arrested before Xie, the procuratorate said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2008)