Authorities punished 465 provincial and ministerial level officials in the past three decades, a top anti-corruption official said.

Cui Hairong, deputy head of the National Bureau for the Prevention of Corruption, also revealed that more than 4.2 million Party and government officials were punished from 1982 to 2011.

Of these, more than 90 provincial-level officials received judicial penalties, Cui said.

Cui provided the figures in a speech to the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Hong Kong on May 11, according to the bureau’s website on May 14.

Huge economic strides have been made in the last few decades, Cui said.

“Yet, along with the economic boom and social transition, corruption has become the major obstacle that threatens the healthy and stable development of China’s economy, politics and society.”

He stressed that the Party and the government have attached huge importance to fighting and preventing corruption.

According to Cui, from 2003 to 2011 the courts tried 42,000 officials accused of corruption.

China established the anti-corruption bureau in 2007.

Moreover, the authorities received about 1.35 million reports against corruption in 2011, among which about 138,000 cases are being further investigated.