China's sales of on-line games reached 2.47 billion yuan (US$298.6 million) in 2004, up 47.9 percent from the previous year, according to the 2004 China On-line Game Industry Report.

The report, released by the Press and Publication Administration, said the number of Chinese Internet users amounted to 94 million in 2004. The number of on-line game players reached 20.25 million.

The report predicted that China's on-line game sales income will reach 10.96 billion yuan in 2009.

A source from the Press and Publication Administration said China will develop more than 300 of its own on-line games during the coming five years.

To accomplish this, the country needs to recruit more than 20,000 game programming professionals. However, the country currently has only several thousand of on-line game programming professionals, which keeps China's game industry from moving forward.

The source disclosed that China is planning to establish a college particularly to train on-line game programming professionals and will pick up 10 universities to set up on-line game programming departments.

(Xinhua News Agency February 15, 2005)