Since the Chinese government started to reform state-owned newspapers seven months ago, 677 government and Party newspapers have been shut down, with previous subscribers of a total of 1.8 billion yuan (US$217 million) in compulsory fees.

There are 1,452 Party and government newspapers involved in the state-owned newspaper reform. Besides the canceled 677 newspapers, 325 state-owned newspapers were transferred to commercial newspaper groups while 310 newspapers were separated from government departments, and 94 official journals have been converted for free distribution.

All the efforts directly cut 1.54 billion newspapers every year, according to the work group in charge of the reform.

The move to forbid mandatory subscription to government and Party newspapers, which is mainly aimed at relieving the financial burden of farmers and units at grass-roots level, has been welcomed by cadres and people nationwide.

The long-term supervision system should be established to ensure that no compulsory subscription of state newspapers is forced on ordinary people again, the group said.

Currently, China's mainland has 2,119 newspapers, 9,038 magazines and 568 publishing houses. In September of 2003, regulators issued measures likely to reform Party and government publications by ending their state funding and mandatory subscription schemes.

(Xinhua News Agency March 16, 2004)