NEW FASHION: Diners bag their leftovers at a restaurant in Shanghai on February 6 (FAN JUN)

In south China's island province of Hainan, Wang Qun, Director of the Finance Bureau for Qiongzhong, a poverty-stricken county, was suspended from his post and placed under investigation after allegations of misusing public funds in restaurants, a disciplinary watchdog said. Investigators said Wang spent 15,000 yuan ($2,408) on three banquets for friends and colleagues in January.

"We have found other government departments in Hainan are also involved in the misuse of taxpayers' money on feasts and we will find those who are accountable and punish them," said Luo Zhijun, Deputy Director of the CPC Hainan Provincial Commission for Disciplinary Inspection.

No guarantees

Due largely to the national frugality campaign, many restaurants, especially high-end ones, have already reported sharp declines in extravagant banquets.

According to a survey conducted by the China Cuisine Association, as much as 60 percent of restaurants, mostly upscale ones, said many reservations have been canceled since the end of last year.

Chen Junhai, an executive at Wangshunge Restaurant Group in Beijing, said that efforts to eradicate publicly funded extravagance had been a big blow to many high-end catering businesses.

About 30 percent of Wangshunge's income comes from hosting luxury business banquets, Chen said.

In Tianjin, the number of banquets held by government departments in the past month dropped nearly 30 percent year on year, according to Xing Ji, head of the Tianjin Catering Trade Association. Xing said that the average cost of official banquets had also fallen by 50 percent.

In Haikou, Hainan, restaurants have reported huge losses from the cancellation of government banquets. "Normally, business banquets account for 80 percent of our revenue at the end of each year, but the wave of cancellations has cast a big shadow on our business," a manager of a luxury restaurant in Haikou told People's Daily.

The China Cuisine Association said that most restaurant owners are predicting a grim year for 2013. About one third estimated that the growth rate would slip below 10 percent.

However, Jiang Ming'an, an anti-graft expert from Peking University, warned that despite the Central Government's orders urging frugality, some officials are able to create fake spending invoices to escape supervision. "The only measure that could prevent them from over-spending or abusing their privileges would be to make public spending transparent," he said.

Zhang Zhixin, a professor of public management at the Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing, said that stricter rules are essential to curbing extravagance.

"We should try to eliminate undocumented spending by tightening our budgetary rules. By doing so corruption and unnecessary banquets can be avoided," Zhang said.

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