Friday marks the first day of operation for the media center for the upcoming 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Center sources said all the 320 overseas journalists based in Beijing had registered for the meeting.

Though the exact number of overseas journalists is still unavailable with more still applying, it is expected to exceed that of all previous Party Congresses.

Increasing numbers of Western businessmen who had been doing business with China in the past decade, had seen China's strong and growing economic competitive edge, said Joe Mcdonald, Beijing bureau chief of the Associated Press (AP).

That stimulated western readers' interest in China's future development, he said.

AP and Reuters have six and 13 journalists respectively covering the Party Congress. They began releasing stories on the Congress more than a month ago.

Many domestic and overseas journalists visited the media center on Friday though there was no news briefing.

Terry Mcdonald, cameraman and editor with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), said that the ABC considered the Congress important but was likely to face competition from other media.

(Xinhua News Agency November 2, 2002)