"These statistics make China among the top of the developing countries in developing and popularizing the Internet," the paper said.

The Internet has become an engine promoting the economic development of China. Information technology (IT) including the Internet and its industry has made significant contributions to the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, it said.

In the past 16 years, the average growth rate of the added value of Chinese IT industry grew at over 26.6 percent annually, with its proportion in the national economy increasing from less than 1 percent to 10 percent, according to the paper.

Meanwhile, the Internet has become an indispensable tool in people's every-day life, it said.

According to a sample survey, in 2009 alone, about 230 million people in China gathered information using search engines, and 240 million communicated through real-time telecommunications devices.

Also, 46 million Chinese people received education with the help of the Internet, 35 million conducted securities trading on the Internet, 15 million sought jobs through the Internet, and 14 million arranged trips via the Internet.

The Chinese government is determined to further promote Internet development and application so that more people can benefit from the Internet, the paper said.

"Chinese citizens fully enjoy freedom of speech on the Internet," it said, adding that China's websites attach great importance to providing netizens with opinion expression services.

Over 80 percent of China's websites provided electronic bulletin service. And there are over 1 million BBSs and some 220 million bloggers in China.

According to a sample survey, over 66 percent of Chinese netizens frequently place postings to discuss various topics, and to fully express their opinions and represent their interests.

"The Internet's role in supervision is given full play," the paper said.

Over the past few years, a great number of the problems reported through the Internet have been resolved.

In order to facilitate the public's reporting of corrupt and degenerate officials and suchlike, the central discipline inspection and supervision authorities, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and other relevant bodies have set up informant websites.

The informant website of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision, and the website of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention are playing an important role in preventing and punishing corruption and degeneration among officials.