BEIJING - All levels of government agencies across China will use legitimate software by the end of 2012, a government official said Tuesday.

Copyrighted software has already been installed in central government departments, and it will be popularized among local authorities next year, Chang Xiaocun, head of the market order department of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), said during an online interview with www.gov.cn.

China completed a nine-month campaign in July to crack down on piracy and other intellectual property rights infringements.

A total of 12,854 underground factories making pirated and phony products had been shut down by police and 4,904 gangs selling the counterfeit goods had been broken up, according to MOC data.