Beijing, Dec 22 (IANS/EFE): More than 30,000 people have been arrested in a major two-month-long campaign against pornography and gambling in the southern Chinese province of Guangzhou, the country's state-run media reported Monday.

The police campaign came shortly after two earlier efforts, one against prostitution in the same province which led to the arrest of more than 3,000 people, and another against drug trafficking which dismantled a large network of synthetic drug production in the region.

The police of Guangzhou, China's most industrialised and developed province, said that such campaigns would continue in the coming year in order to prevent a rebound effect in the proliferation of illegal activities.

Gambling has been illegal in China since the establishment of the Communist regime in 1949 with the exception of state lotteries and in the former Portuguese colony of Macau which boasts of the world's largest gaming market.