From October 16 to 17, over 200 representatives from Chinese language newspapers in 12 countries and regions held their 42th annual meeting in Chongqing, Sichuan Province to discuss the challenges facing them due to the expansion of electronic newspapers. Zhou Xisheng, Deputy Director of Xinhua urged them to "adapt to changes in the world media and develop Chinese newspapers hand in hand." He stated that the traditional newspapers cannot step back, but to adapt to the what young people like, and strive to transfer the contents of the newspapers to electronic versions. Currently Mainland China publishes 1,943 newspapers with a daily circulation exceeding 100 million copies. However since 2003, the number of newspaper has declined by 10% as a result of the expansion of electronic newspapers.
Source: People’s Daily, October 19, 2009
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2009-10/19/content_363421.htm