The Chinese government has approved six more countries as the destinations for outbound tourist groups, said sources with the China National Tourism Administration on Sunday.

The six countries are Oman, Morocco, Monaco, Syria, Namibia and Bulgaria.

In the first half of the year, China's outbound tourism saw rapid growth, with the number of tourists up 14.04 percent from the same period of last year, said the administration.

The country remained Asia's largest source of outbound tourism last year, with 34 million Chinese tourists traveling abroad, up 10 percent year-on-year.

China has so far approved 132 countries and regions as destinations for outbound tourism, 86 of which receive Chinese tourist groups.

(Xinhua News Agency August 20, 2007)