The revenue of China's Internet advertising rose to 1.08 billion yuan (US$130 million) in 2003, over twice as much as the amount in 2002, according to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

The market for Internet advertising has a great prospect since China boasts over 78 million netizens, said Wang Jinjie, deputy director with the office of advertising management of the administration.

A total of 870,000 people are engaged in China's advertising business with a revenue reaching 107.9 billion yuan (US$13 billion), which is around 0.92 percent of the nation's GDP, Wang said.

He said the conventional advertising also achieved steady growth of over 10 percent last year.

Statistics indicate most of the ad business still goes to TV and newspaper, which account for 23.64 percent and 22.53 percent respectively. In 2003, TV earned 25.5 billion yuan (US$3 billion) and newspapers got 24.3 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion) from advertising.

Radio broadcast and magazines won 2.56 billion yuan (US$308 million) and 2.44 billion yuan (US$294 million), according to the statistics.

(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2004)