Lai Songling, a professor at Jinan University in the provincial capital of Guangzhou, said the pilot project will reduce corruption. A transparent and effective system should also be established to expand supervision of Party and government officials, he added.

The project comes after multiple corruption cases involving senior Party and government officials in Guangdong in 2010.

Last year, 31 of the province's city-level Party and government officials were investigated for graft, figures from Guangdong's commission for discipline inspection showed.

They included Li Qihong, former mayor of Zhongshan city; Li Ping, former Party secretary of Shenzhen's Futian district; Xian Wen, former deputy director of Zhuhai People's Congress; and Ni Junxiong, former deputy director of Guangdong provincial committee for comprehensive management of public security.

The provincial commission for discipline inspection also cooperated with the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China to investigate former Shenzhen mayor Xu Zongheng's graft case last year.

Guangdong's commission for discipline inspection last year investigated 4,712 corruption cases involving 4,963 people, including 217 Party and government officials above county level.

Economic losses valued at more than 1.25 billion yuan ($190 million) had been retrieved in corruption cases.