BEIJING- China's audit authorities said Friday that they had discovered violations involving 550 hectares of land being misused for construction projects.

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The misused land also included 183 hectares of arable land, said the  National Audit Office (NAO).

The NAO said the violations were found when it carried out an auditing, from June to September last year, over 94 projects in the provinces of Jilin, Hunan, Hainan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Shaanxi, as well as in the cities of Nanjing, Dalian, Ningbo and Qingdao.

Among the violators were 13 organizations that were put in charge of construction of projects with central government financing, according to the NAO, which failed to identify the violators.

"The project builders implicated in the violations have either been given penalties or have been ordered by relevant authorities to take measures to remedy their practices," said the NAO in a statement posted at its website.

In the auditing, the NAO also found developers of 18 projects had fraudulently gained 139.15 million yuan (about $21 million) in investment from the central government, while those of 35 projects were found to have broken bidding or subcontract rules for construction.

China launched a 4-trillion stimulus package in November 2008 to expand domestic demand and promote economic growth amid the global financial crisis.

An upward of 36,799 projects, with a combined investment of 314.79 billion yuan from the central government, have been planned for construction in the above mentioned 10 regions by June 201, according to the statement.