BEIJING, June 13 (AP) -- A senior Chinese Communist Party official on Monday ordered stepped-up efforts to squelch bribery in a crackdown that follows the cashiering of a Beijing vice mayor for corruption.

He Yong, a deputy secretary of the party's internal anti-corruption organization, said the campaign would target bribery in commercial activities, the government's Xinhua News Agency reported. Authorities will particularly focus on building projects, land transfers, property sales, government procurement and sale of resources, the report said.

The new campaign is the latest in a series of periodic measures to root out pervasive corruption. The order comes a day after Beijing suddenly sacked Vice Mayor Liu Zhihua on unspecified corruption charges in a potentially high-profile scandal.

Liu oversaw construction projects for the 2008 Olympics, on which Beijing is spending an US$40 billion (€32 billion). His case has been handed over to He's office for investigation.

In the new crackdown, He said law-enforcement departments should investigate complaints, and he urged better cooperation between judicial and government departments, Xinhua reported.

China's central government has punished thousands of officials -- and executed some -- for embezzlement, bribery and other abuses in perennial campaigns to root out endemic corruption that authorities fear could undermine party rule.