China will speed up cost-effectiveness audits to rein in the waste of resources, though achievements have been made in budget audit over the past few years, Li Jinhua, the nation's top auditor has said.

"In this regard, auditors will evaluate the consumption of resources and results of projects and put forward suggestions and proposals for the government to deal with problems found during the auditing," said Li, auditor general of the National Audit Office.

After auditing 40 departments of the central government, auditors concluded that the number of cases involving irregularities was on the decrease while budget management was improving, according to Li.

However, although quite a few projects were built legally, they could not produce sound economic returns and social benefit as expected, and had even resulted in a waste of resources, capital and manpower, which could hardly be found during financial audit, he said.

"Economic losses caused by waste is really a problem as serious as embezzlement and corruption," said Li, who admitted government departments had improved the use of budget funds under increasingly strict auditing over the past years.

"How to save resources and achieve the best possible results at the cost of the least possible resources is an important task before us."

Li said his office will intensify efforts to audit the cost-effectiveness of projects in the future and try to place equal importance to both budget audit and cost-effectiveness audit at the end of 2007.

However, what auditors can do is to investigate and make suggestions, and "it's up to policy-makers to decide whether the suggestions or proposals are feasible," said Li.

Li is praised as a national hero as he led his colleagues in the auditing of the Three Gorges Project, the natural forest protection project, the budget of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games and public reserve fund for housing.

The purpose of cost-effectiveness audit is to help improve management and increase benefit.