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East China's Zhejiang province reported 71 billion yuan (8.6 billion US dollars) in tourism revenue last year, a year-on-year increase of 21 percent, according to official figures.

According to the figures released Thursday by the Tourism Bureau of the Zhejiang Provincial government, the coastal province received 2.04 million tourists from outside the Chinese mainland in 2002, up 38.9 percent from the previous year.

A total of 1.21 million foreign tourists toured the province last year, an increase of 48 percent, while tourists from China's Taiwan province totaled 527,000, up 32 percent.

The tourism sector in Zhejiang earned 926 million US dollars in foreign exchange, up 30.9 percent.

The number of tourists from other parts of the Chinese mainland reached 80.2 million, up 16.3 percent, generating 63.3 billion yuan (7.7 billion US dollars) in revenue for the province's tourism sector, 19.8 percent higher than the previous year.

The coastal province is famous for tourist attractions such as Qiandao Lake and Hangzhou.

A total of 154,000 people from Zhejiang traveled outside the province, up 32.9 percent.

They traveled mainly to neighboring Jiangsu province and to southeast Asian countries including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.