AUTHORITIES in Guangdong say they have saved 670 million yuan (HK$628 million) by cutting extravagant spending in state-owned enterprises.
Head of the province's economic commission Chen Shanru, said the saving came after a crackdown last year on unnecessary spending.
The largest saving - 490 million yuan - was achieved by cancelling 39 office building projects.
A further 10 million yuan was saved by cutting 222 office renovation projects.
Provincial authorities also managed to save 115 million yuan by calling a halt to enterprise managers using company funds for phones and pagers.
Managers were found to have installed 87,000 home telephones, 50,000 mobile telephones and more than 100,000 pagers using company funds.
The state enterprises later agreed to pay only for 50,000 home telephones, 30,000 mobile phones and 60,000 pagers, and succeeded in recovering 115 million yuan.