China has become the third largest film producer in the world following the United States and India, a film industry official said Saturday.

China shot a record number 212 films in 2004, and cinemas nationwide reported a total box office income of 1.5 billion yuan (US$180 million), said Zhang Pimin, vice-director of the film bureau of State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

Chinese films made 3.6 billion yuan (US$433 million) in overseas cinemas and the movie channel of China Central Television, Zhang said at an annual meeting on the Chinese cultural market, held Saturday in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.

"But problems still exist in China's film industry," he said. "We have very few good films, for example."

According to Zhang, only three of the 212 Chinese movies produced in 2004 were really successful in terms of box office income, namely, The House of Flying Daggers, Kong Fu Hustle and A World Without Thieves. These three blockbusters took up nearly 60 percent of the country's total box office revenue for that year, he said.

Zhang said China also needs to build more cinemas to entertain the growing number of moviegoers. "China's 1.3 billion people share only 1,200 cinemas, or 2,500 screens. The United States, however, has 36,000 screens for its 200 million people."

That means the world's most populous nation needs also to renovate some old, single-hall movie theaters into multi-hall complexes to screen more films and accommodate larger audiences, he said.

"Modern cinema complexes built in Beijing and Shanghai in recent years are all making good profits," said Zhang. Nationwide, multi-hall cinema complexes take up 80 percent of the country's total box office income, he added.

Earlier reports said Warner's China division has signed an agreement with the State-owned Shenzhen International Trust Investment Corp to open eight new cinemas in China this year in Shenzhen, Nanchang, Changsha, Zhengzhou and Chongqing.

(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2005)