In 2006, China produced 82,000 minutes of animation films. However, this still falls short of the market demand, said Jin Delong, head of the Publicity Management Department at the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the Life News reported.

There are more than 1,000 television channels in China and hundreds of millions of adolescents watch TV. At present, domestic animation films, especially excellent domestic animation films, are far from enough to meet the demand of the people, especially young people, he said.

"While China should increase the production of animation films, it should also raise the quality of domestically-made animation films. At present, most domestic animation makers do not pay enough attention to the creative and research work before the filmmaking. As a result, most of the animation films produced are roughly made with poor taste both in imagination and creativity," Jin said.

"Administrative bodies at various levels and animation makers should devote more efforts to raising the quality of domestic animation films," he said.

At present, piracy has become a serious problem for domestic animation films and it has caused great losses to animation producers. Animation products, especially videos and cartoon books, are frequently copied illegally. Chinese government should strengthen its efforts to crack down on piracy so as to protect the interests of domestic animation makers.
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(Chinanews.cn February 28, 2007)