The total number of the students from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan enrolled in colleges and universities in China's inland areas this year reached 2,019, said sources with the Ministry of Education.

Of 2,019 students, 914 came from Hong Kong, 723 from Macao and 339 from Taiwan. And the rest 43 students are overseas Chinese.

Altogether 3,770 students from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Chinese overseas have applied for the entrance to inland colleges, with the number of Hong Kong applicants increasing by 136 and the figure from Taiwan by 212 from the previous year, according to the ministry.

The ministry attributed the increasing number of applicants mainly to the implementation of the policies of giving them the same national treatment as mainland students in recent years.

Students from Hong Kong and Macao studying at universities on the Chinese mainland will pay the same tuition fees as their mainland peers from this September.

Colleges that enroll Hong Kong and Macao students will get special subsidies of about 8,000 yuan (about US$963) per student per year from the central government to cover educational costs.

Taiwan students are offered the same incentives last September.

The ministry began to enroll the students from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in 1985. Now the number of mainland's colleges and universities that enroll students from these regions has risen from seven in 1985 to 120 this year.

Up to now, more than 20,000 students from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are studying in mainland's colleges and universities.

(Xinhua News Agency August 5, 2006)