China's Internet users top 54 million

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 ◆ China's Internet users top 54 million

By the end of September this year, China had 54.35 million Internet users, with 20.56 million computers connected to the Internet, and 81,907 WWW websites.

The figures were disclosed recently in Shanghai by Su Jinsheng, director of the Telecommunication Administration of China's Ministry of Information Industry, at a national Internet conference.

In 2001, business volume in the country's Internet industry totaled 7 billion yuan (about 840 million US dollars), including 4.69 billion yuan (566 million dollars) from Internet service and 530 million yuan (64 million dollars) from on-line advertising and e-shopping.

Many speakers at the conference agreed that paying for using Internet services would become increasingly popular in the future.

Despite heated debate on the user-pay issue for on-line services, local Internet companies are beginning to make more money by publishing new-style on-line advertising and providing a range of on-line information, cell phone message services via the Internet and on-line games.