China, with the world's second-largest number of Internet users, saw sales of online games last year soar 47.9 percent to 2.47 billion yuan (US$298.44 million).

Among China's 94 million Internet users, 20.25 million were online games enthusiasts, Xinhua reported, citing the Press and Publication Administration.

In 2003, China had only 13.8 million online games players, with sales of related products and services amounting to 1.3 billion yuan.

The online games market has the potential to boom with expected revenues of 9.3 billion yuan by 2006, but could then level off in 2009 on forecast sales of 10.96 billion yuan, according to Xinhua.

While many games played in China are from overseas, authorities want to boost sales of the more than 300 homemade online games over the next five years.

However, to meet this goal, China must recruit more than 20,000 game programers. China currently has only several thousand online game programers, but the country is planning to establish a college to train Inter-net game programers.

The government launched a nationwide crackdown on online computer games last year, banning foreign games with sensitive political content as part of attempts to shield the country's youth from harmful influences.

Officials have repeatedly said they intend to promote healthy online computer games for young people, who currently make up around 20 percent of China's online population.

(Shenzhen Daily February 17, 2005)