Key facts about China's internet usage

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--Number of websites operating was 3.23 million in 2009, up 2,152 times from 1997.

--There has been a shift in usage of dialing access numbers to broadband and mobile phones to access the Internet. Of all the netizens, 346 million used broadband and 233 million used mobile phones.

--China invested a total of 4.3 trillion yuan from 1997 to 2009 to build a nationwide optical communication network spreading to a total length of 8.267 million km.  

--Around 230 million IPv4 addresses helped China become the second-largest owner in the world.

--Internet development and application in China is unevenly distributed regionally, with 72.2 percent urban Internet users and 27.8 percent rural areas.  

Booming Internet Business

"The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in promoting economic restructuring and transforming the pattern of economic development. The development and application of the Internet has given rise to the emergence of many new industries. Services for the development of industries such as industrial counseling, software service and outsourcing are mushrooming," the paper said.

--In 2008, turnover of Internet-related industries stood at 650 billion yuan, with sales of Internet-related equipment touching 500 billion yuan-worth, with a share of 1/60 of China's GDP, and 1/10 of its global trade. Turnover of software operations was 19.84 billion yuan.

--In 2009, the trade volume of e-commerce exceeded 3.6 trillion yuan.  

--In the past five years, online advertisement increased annually by 30 percent, with turnover reaching 20 billion yuan in 2009. The online gaming industry had a turnover of 25.8 billion yuan in 2009, ranking top in the world.

--Listed over 30 related companies in the US and Hong Kong, besides China's mainland.

Internet Impact

--A sample survey conducted for the year 2009 showed that about 230 million people in China used search engines to collect information, and 240 million used real-time telecommunications devices for communication purposes. Moreover, 46 million Chinese people attained education, 35 million traded securities, 15 million hunted jobs, and 14 million organized their travel with the use of internet.

--Over 80 percent of websites provided electronic bulletin service.

--There are around 220 million bloggers in China.

Internet in fighting corruption

--The Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and other relevant bodies have set-up informant websites to provide a platform to publicly report on the corrupt and degenerate officials.

--"The Chinese government believes that the Internet is an important infrastructure facility for the nation. Within Chinese territory the Internet is under the jurisdiction of Chinese sovereignty," it said, stressing that the Internet sovereignty of China should be respected and protected.

Internet crimes

--Cybercrimes have been on the rise in recent years with public security departments dealing with 48,000 crime cases in 2009 compared with 142 in 1998.

--In 2009, over one million IP addresses in China were controlled from outside the country with 42,000 websites being subjected to hacking. In addition, Conficker virus attacked 18 million Chinese computers  every month.