China curbs overseas trips on public expense

BEIJING, Jan. 5 (Chinese media) -- China banned nearly 4,000 people from attending

more than 550 overseas group trips on public expense in the six months to the

end of November, a top disciplineofficial said here Monday.

Ma Wen, deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline

Communist Party of China, said 830,000 official passport-holders went abroad in

the same period, down 18.9 percent over the figure in the previous year.