One of the mainland's top property developers has called on the government to clean up corruption and boost transparency in the real estate industry.

Pan Shiyi,chairman of Beijing based SOHO China Ltd, said he believed the recent scandal involving Shanghai Land chairman Chau Ching-ngai highlighted endemic corruption in the property sector.

"This type of scandal makes us all reflect on what the problems are ,"said Mr Pan, a private entrepreneur known for his SOHO Newtown project in Beijing, a large residential complex with a modern design.

"To me it reflects a problem with the system. Mr Chau may allegedly have done something wrong as senior officials say he has, and you can put him in jail, but other Mr Chaus may pop up," he said.

"The real estate development process is too opaque. Too many officials and bank officials are involved and want a cut of the benefits. This is a key problem in China today."

Mr Chau, currently under house arrest in Shanghai, is at the centre of a corruption scandal widely believed to be linked to the recent downfall of Liu Jinbao, Bank of China Hong Kong chief executive and former chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Banks.

Mr Pan said he and SOHO China officials did not, as a matter of principle, participate in underhand deals or bribe officials to acquire land.

However, such ethical practices may have hindered SOHO China's growth. The company has not been able to acquire new land stock for the past three years because of Mr Pan's insistence that executives do not give bribes to officials responsible for the final approval of land development projects.

Mr Pan said he was able to get the development rights for SOHO Newtown and his adjacent Jianwai SOHO project because he acquired the land rights in 1996,when Beijing's property market was still just beginning and because few officials asked for huge under-the-table concessions from developers then.

"I'm lucky in that I began developing land when many people didn't know what land development was," he said. "Now if I want to develop land, many middlemen, many of them linked with government officials, offer this high price or this fee or that fee, often items that are off the accounting books."

Mr Pan urged top leaders to begin enforcing Article 30 issued by the Ministry of Land and Resources, a state administrative ruling that came into effect last July requiring all land suitable for development either to be auctioned off or sold in a transparent bidding process. "Although this law went into effect last year, it has not been implemented well," Mr Pan said.

He also said that more foreign investors would come to China if it had a corruption-free, transparent land development system.