(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-30 10:46

China had issued 1.5 billion bank cards by the end of 2007, a growth of 32.6 percent on the same period of the previous year, according to the People's Bank of China, the central bank.

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The total included 1.41 billion debit cards, up 30.4 percent, and 90.26 million credit cards, up 82 percent.

Last year witnessed bank-card-based consumption account for 21.9 percent of China's total annual retail sales, up 4.9 percentage points year-on-year.