China's substantial efforts to reform and trim down its state newspapers has entered into a crucial phase, with 673 Party and government newspapers having been suspended from publication.

Liu Yunshan, head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee said Saturday that the CPC and government's efforts to rectify the management of state newspapers has paid off.

He acknowledged that the more than four-month endeavor to stop the mandatory subscription to Party and government newspapers, which is aimed at relieving the financial burden of farmers and units at the grass-roots level, has been widely welcomed by officials and people nationwide.

A total of 1,452 Party and government newspapers have been affected by the state newspaper reform, 673 of which have been suspended for yielding no economic profit and 87 of which have been made free publications.

Liu, also a member of the Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, urged local departments to allocate jobs for media staff left unemployed by the cuts and said the long-term supervision system should be established to ensure no more compulsory subscription to state newspapers by ordinary people.

Currently, the Chinese mainland has 2,119 newspapers, 9,038 magazines and 568 publishing houses. Earlier this year, regulators are set to issue measures likely to reform Party and government publications by ending their state funding and mandatory subscription schemes.

(Xinhua News Agency November 25, 2003)