For the fifth year in a row China has published more newspapers than any other country in the world, according to the Newspaper and Periodical Publication Management Department.

China publishes almost 15 percent of the world's daily newspapers with a combined print of 100 million copies everyday, said the department, which is under China's State Administration of Press and Publication.

The department's report shows profits attained from newspaper sales reached 25.29 billion yuan (about US$3.1 billion) and newspaper advertisement revenue amounted to 23.07 billion yuan (about US$2.85 billion) in 2004.

The report wasn't all good news as it showed China's per capita newspaper readership is still much lower than the world average, with only 75.8 newspapers for every 1,000 people. It also says newspaper quality and the newspaper production efficiency still have much room for improvement.

The report took a year and half to compile. It contains more than 40,000 statistics and more than 400 graphs.

The main report was made public at the Annual Conference of Chinese Newspaper Development held last August.

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2006)