The area under opium poppy plants in the Golden Triangle of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos was reduced to 73,300 ha by 2003 from 130,000 ha in 1998, China's drug enforcement agency said Tuesday.

A leading official with the Narcotics Control Administration of the Ministry of Public Security attributed the progress to closer international cooperation, with China playing an active role.

The Golden Triangle has been a major source of illegal narcotics on the world market, and it has been targeted by China, the United States and those southeast Asian countries in their fight against drug trafficking.

The official said China has enhanced information exchange, cooperation in police training and law enforcement with neighboring countries with significant breakthroughs in the war on drug makers and dealers.

China also conducted anti-drug cooperation with the Republic of Korea, Japan and the Netherlands, Afghanistan, and member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Canada, France, and Australia in recent years.

China has been targeted by drug dealers as a transit and a market for banned drugs in the past decade.

The ministry said Monday there were about 740,000 users of banned drugs in China by the end of 2003, and the country's registered number of drug addicts totaled 1.05 million, including those that had gone clean. China has a total of 643,000 heroin users on the record during the past several decades.

(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2004)