A Communist Party official has been found dead after an alcohol-fuelled dinner with investors, highlighting the dangers of China's tradition of mixing booze and business, state media said Monday.

Shen Hao, party secretary in the village of Xiaogang in eastern Anhui province, was found dead early Friday at his home, the China Daily reported.

There were no signs of foul play and a police investigation had been opened.

Another local official said Shen, 46, had been working on several land transfer deals, and had met the previous night with three groups of investors.

Villagers said he had had too much to drink.

"He looked very tired and wanted to sleep," the man's landlady, Ma Jiaxian, was quoted as saying after a village official helped him home.

Shen was the latest casualty of China's tradition in which officials and businessmen are expected to ply guests with strong Chinese liquor at elaborate banquets amid cries of "gan bei," or "drain the glass."

A local official in the central city of Wuhan died of a heart attack this year after excessive drinking while entertaining, and another lapsed into a coma, previous media reports said.

"Of course, you can choose not to drink. But it will be difficult when dealing with other officials," one civil servant in the city of Tianjin outside

Beijing, told the China Daily on condition of anonymity.

"Drinking at the dinner table is an unspoken rule for doing business. We just have no choice."

The state Xinhua news agency said in July that about 500 billion yuan (73 billion dollars) in public funds is spent each year on official banquets - nearly one-third of the nation's spending on dining out.

However, amid growing outrage in China over the flamboyant lifestyles of some government and Communist Party leaders, a number of Chinese cities have in recent years banned such binge drinking at lunchtime.