Friday marks the first day of operation for the media center for
the upcoming
16th
National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
Center sources said all the 320 overseas journalists based in
Beijing had registered for the meeting.
Though the exact number of overseas journalists is still
unavailable with more still applying, it is expected to exceed that
of all previous Party Congresses.
Increasing numbers of Western businessmen who had been doing
business with China in the past decade, had seen China's strong and
growing economic competitive edge, said Joe Mcdonald, Beijing
bureau chief of the Associated Press (AP).
That stimulated western readers' interest in China's future
development, he said.
AP
and Reuters have six and 13 journalists respectively covering the
Party Congress. They began releasing stories on the Congress more
than a month ago.
Many domestic and overseas journalists visited the media center on
Friday though there was no news briefing.
Terry Mcdonald, cameraman and editor with the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), said that the ABC considered the
Congress important but was likely to face competition from other
media.
(Xinhua News
Agency November 2, 2002)