The list included Hua Zeqiao, former vice-president of China Shenhua Energy Company; Ren Yong, assistant general manager of Dongfeng Motor Corporation; and China Southern Airlines's vice-general managers Chen Gang, Xu Jiebo and Zhou Yuehai.

An official with the CCDI said that the amount of corruption detected among SOE executives during inspection has showed how rampant the problem is and the urgency of the drive against it.

Ren Jianming, a professor with the Public Administration School of Beihang University, said some SOEs have been controlled by corrupt officials as a tool to make illegal gains.

Liu Junhai, a professor at Renmin University of China Law School, said China is strengthening the anti-corruption campaign concerning SOEs in a bid to accelerate SOE reform, which has been progressing slowly.

Some officials and executives of SOEs, which monopolize power to allocate public resources, are taking all possible means to hold onto their power and resisting the set-up of a market-oriented system, he said.

Corruption and abuse of power in SOEs have raised operating costs, impaired the openness of the market, caused huge loss of state assets, and hampered development of the firms.

Gao Bo, deputy secretary-general of the Clean Government Studies Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the anti-corruption drive targeting SOE officials will help push forward China's ongoing broader overhaul of these companies and the economy.

This is particularly important as China is coping with the "New Normal" of slower economic growth, he said.