China has banned 30 periodicals in the country, accusing them of counterfeiting or illegally using the registration number of other periodicals, reported Wednesday's Guangming Daily.

These illegal periodicals covered many fields, including politics, culture, science, education, health, environment and communication, the paper said. And the periodical of WTO and China was among the blacklist.

In recent years, these illegal periodicals set up editor's headquarters, branch offices or other agencies in China to conduct publishing and distribution activities and make huge profits by charging high fees for advertisement, the paper said, quoting the State Administration of Press and Publication (SAPP).

"Their illegal publication activities not only disturbed the nation's management system and market order of publication, but also misled and deceived the general public, thus harming the legitimate rights of consumers," the SAPP was quoted as saying.

The SAPP launched the special move to regulate the nation's publication order since December of last year, jointly with the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, the paper said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 15, 2004)