The southwestern municipality of Chongqing has become the largest producer of compact video discs in western China after three years of arduous effort to develop the industry.

Last year, the city produced 64 million CD-ROMs, of which 16 million were exported, and 12 million DVDs, generating total sales revenue of 89.1 million yuan (10.7 million US dollars), according to the city's press and publishing bureau.

The municipality founded a joint venture producing erasable compact video discs with a total investment of 140 million yuan (16.9 million US dollars) in 1999 and invested 57 million yuan (6.9million US dollars) in 2001 in a CD-ROM company. Both companies lead the country in production capacity, technologies and product quality.

Statistics show that China had a market demand for 500 million CD-ROMs last year and an increasing demand for DVDs is expected.