The year 2002 saw a total of 19 million residents from the Chinese mainland exiting or entering the country for private reasons, up 48.21 percent from the previous year.
The figure was released by the Exit-Entry Administration under the Ministry of Public Security on Monday.
Statistics from the same source indicate that the overseas destinations for Chinese mainland residents included 235 different countries and regions. The ten most popular were Hong Kong, Macao,Japan, Russia, Thailand, the Republic of Korea (ROK), the United States, Singapore, Vietnam and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
(People's Daily January 13, 2003)
