BEIJING -- China has produced its first batch of dot.com graduates as the world's most populous country steps up its efforts to educate talent for the emerging Internet economy, the China Daily reported yesterday.
The 22 graduates from the Web News Media class at Central China Science and Technology University in the central city of Wuhan have already found jobs at Internet companies, even though they only got their bachelor's degrees over the weekend.
The students have been equipped for careers in cyberspace by taking classes in literature, mass media, multimedia technology, computer languages and database technology, the paper said.
China maintains a powerful lure for Internet companies both at home and abroad because of its large pool of only partly tapped technical talent.
It is also a major attraction for dot.com capital because of its large and rapidly growing online population.
Local media reported over the weekend that the number of Chinese surfing the Internet had now reached 13 million, up 46 per cent from late last year.
At the end of 1999, China had 8.9 million Internet users, a fourfold increase on last year. --AFP
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