About 25.11 million people have registered as volunteers since China issued a regulation on volunteer registration management last year, the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL) said in Beijing on Wednesday.

With today being International Volunteers Day, CCYL sources said China issued a regulation last year that aimed to better manage volunteer registration and to coordinate volunteers and the services they can offer.

Registered volunteers in provinces and cities, including Beijing, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong and Sichuan, have each exceeded one million.

A volunteer network was formed by 35 volunteer associations at the provincial level, in two-thirds of China's volunteers associations at the county level, among 2,000 volunteer associations in universities and at 19 volunteer service centers, CCYL said.

About 268 million volunteers have offered six billion hours of services since the CCYL encouraged Chinese youth to act as volunteers in 1993.

(Xinhua News Agency December 6, 2007)