The entertainment industry magazine Variety plans to launch a Chinese edition this June, the first in as many as a dozen titles that its publisher hopes to launch in China this year.

The magazine will be published biweekly with initial circulation of 25 thousand copies, but plans for weekly publication as soon as next year.

Variety China will be the first foreign language edition in the 99-year history of the Hollywood film and entertainment industry magazine.

It joins a raft of foreign magazines already crowding Chinese news stands, including Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Computerworld.

Variety's owner, Reed Business Information, has ambitious plans for the Chinese market and expects to eventually reap revenues of 100 million US dollars or more a year.

Variety Magazine is a weekly wrap-up of worldwide entertainment news, and promotes itself as the industry's bible.

(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2004)