Efforts to fight corruption through law enforcement and promotion of ethics will continue to sharpen our edge as a clean and competitive international city.

This was the message from Advisory Committee on Corruption chairman Raymond Ch'ien today who said Berlin-based Transparency International has again rated Hong Kong as the second least corrupt place in Asia this year.

Corruption in the first 11 months was steady, and the conviction rate stayed high at 85%.

On the number of corruption reports received, Operations Review Committee chairman Andrew Chuang said as at end November, there were 4,001 reports, excluding election ones. This represents a dip of 2% over the same period last year.

Of the reports, 43% were related to Government departments and public bodies, with the number of complaints against departments falling 6%. The remaining 57% were related to the private sector.

As at end November, 223 cases involving Government officials were referred to the Government for consideration of disciplinary or administrative action. The figure for the same period last year was 142 cases.

Nevertheless, Mr Chuang said we have a clean civil service and there is no indication of a resurgence of syndicated corruption.

He said the committee is concerned about undesirable association of a small number of law enforcement officers with elements of organised crime syndicates.

On private sector corruption, the building management sub-sector still commanded the highest number of reports in the first 11 months this year, with 855 reports received.

Turning to corruption prevention, Corruption Prevention Advisory Committee chairman Barry Cheung said the ICAC should continue with its corruption prevention efforts in the construction industry and public procurement, which has attracted numerous complaints and cases.

The ICAC will also step up prevention work for quasi-government bodies in view of the large amount of public money spent through them.