Chinese auditors have uncovered 290 billion yuan (35 billion dollars) in funds illegally spent by government offices in the first 11 months of this year, state media said Monday.
The improper spending was found during a nation-wide annual audit of 22,000 officials by the National Audit Office, Xinhua news agency said.
Details were not given but previous findings about misspending involved officials using public funds to build apartments for employees or to give themselves bonuses.
About 196 of the officials were disciplined by their superiors or prosecuted in court, the report said, which cited sources with a national audit conference that opened in Beijing Monday.
The annual audits are an attempt by the government to stem a rising tide of corruption, which is tarnishing the Communist Party's image and fuelling ordinary people's anger against the government.
Next year, the audit authority plans to scrutinise some of the branch offices of China's biggest commercial banks, the Bank of China, the Bank of Communications and the China Merchants Bank, Xinhua said.
Corruption is endemic in China and has grown during its economic reform period, threatening the legitimacy of the communist government, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said earlier.
In a report, the OECD said corruption represented between 3.0 and 5.0 percent of China's gross domestic product, or between 409 and 683 billion yuan (50-84 billion dollars) in 2004.
China's 2004 state audit report showed that 9.06 billion yuan (1.1 billion dollars) was misappropriated by central government departments and 14.5 billion yuan was improperly spent by top state companies.
It was unclear why the amount of embezzled funds found this year was so much greater than last year, but not all of the misused funds identified last year were included in last year's report.
Types of embezzlement included the widespread use of slush funds and diversion of government money into private bank accounts or subsidiary government-run companies.
The annual audit reports have been open to public scrutiny only since 2003. And there are still no detailed laws requiring the judiciary and police to investigate auditing irregularities.