A woman was elected governor of Qinghai Province on Saturday, becoming only the second female governor in China since 1949.

Song Xiuyan, 49, is now the only female governor in China. Gu Xiulian, a woman who served as governor of East China's Jiangsu Province in the 1980s, has retired from the position and become the head of the All China Women's Federation.

Song, born in North China's Tianjin Municipality, has been working in Qinghai for more than 30 years. She was vice governor of Qinghai before she became governor.

The Chinese Government has 14,895,000 female officials, accounting for 36.2 percent of the total official number. However, there are only 73,730 female officials above county level, accounting for only 15 percent of the officials at that level.

(Shenzhen Daily January 24, 2005)