SHANGHAI - Illegal land use is rampant in East China's Shanghai municipality, as well as Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, where the unlawful location of industrial and infrastructure projects on farmland is particularly serious, the Shanghai Bureau of State Land Supervision has said.

Last year, 303 officials from these areas received Party or administrative punishments for their involvement in illegal land use. And 163 of them also faced judicial investigations, the bureau's figures showed.

Director of the Shanghai Bureau of State Land Supervision Gao Xiangjun said in an interview on Monday that some arable lands were put into illegal use before they were declared to authorities.