Hundreds of billions of yuan was recovered through audits conducted by China’s top auditing authorities in 2013, according to a report released on Aug 22.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said in a report that audits conducted on 707 government departments and State-owned companies last year helped recover a total of 275 billion yuan ($44.7 billion), taking into account net increases in revenues and recouped losses.

During the period, total expenditure of the office, which was funded by the State, amounted to 1.09 billion yuan, meaning every yuan spent by the NAO helped recover 252 yuan.

General Auditor Liu Jiayi said the office exposed some serious violations and offered leads on economic crimes. It also uncovered institutional flaws and helped deepen China’s reform, Liu said.

The report also summarized the work of Chinese local auditing authorities in 2013. The results of their audits on about 152,000 local departments and companies were equivalent to more than 820 billion yuan recovered.