Chinese authorities destroyed 47.18 million pornographic and illegal publications on Sunday as part of an ongoing campaign to strengthen intellectual property rights (IPR) protection.

The campaign, organized by the national anti-pornography and anti-piracy office and carried out in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, marked an unprecedented number of publications destroyed in a single day.

More than 17 provinces eliminated more than 1 million pieces each, with Guangdong topping the list, destroying 12 million, or a quarter of the total.

China has attached great importance to IPR protection, which has been considered as a national strategy to help build an innovative country, said Liu Binjie, director of the National Copyright Administration.

According to official statistics, China has in the past 20 years closed down 238 pirate disc production lines, solved more than 400,000 cases of IPR infringement and confiscated more than 1.3 billion illegal publications.

China has also held activities such as "national intellectual property protection promotion week" to raise public awareness. The fifth such week began on Sunday, during which 18 ministries are scheduled to hold events.

Official statistics show that last year, 2,967 people were arrested for suspected violations of IPR. Public security departments investigated 2,283 cases of IPR infringement and made arrests in 2,008 cases, involving 1.49 billion yuan (about 213 million U.S. dollars).

(Xinhua News Agency April 21, 2008)