Xinhua uses new media for CPC national congress news

For the first time ever, Xinhua News Agency will use new media to cover the Communist Party of China (CPC) national congress, which will convene on Thursday, bringing the latest developments in China's most important political event to a global audience.

While continuing to feed its traditional wire service businesses, Xinhua, which was founded 81 years ago on Wednesday, will give news updates on the major Chinese political event with its corporate accounts on Twitter (@XHNews), Weibo and Tencent (both @XinhuaNews_Agency).

The twice-a-decade CPC national congress comes as people in China, which is home to about 538 million Internet users, are using mobile devices and social networking services en masse to spread information or express their views.

Xinhua in March launched the all-inclusive mobile app, Xinhua Mobile, for iPhones (available at: https://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/xinhua/id501321373?mt=8) and for Android devices (available at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.xinhua.xnews_en).

In June, Xinhua issued reports on China's first manual space docking on the English news app Xinhua Mobile in multimedia forms, immediately satisfying global users' curiosity about China's space adventure.

The Spanish, French and Russian versions of Xinhua Mobile can also be downloaded for free from both the Apple and Android app stores.

The 18th National Congress of the CPC will also be covered in an English-language interactive digital magazine for iPads, "Read China." The app can be found in the iPad App Store as a free download by searching "read China" or by pointing a web browser to: https://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/readchina/id527178905?mt=8.

Meanwhile, Xinhua is offering its first Arabic digital magazine, "China Panorama," in the same app store bookshelf.

Xinhua, with about 170 overseas outposts, currently operates not just wire services, but also a news website (www.xinhuanet.com), a satellite television website (www.cncworld.tv), a financial services website (http://cfc.xinhua08.com), 19 newspapers and magazines and a publishing house, as well as the latest mobile and microblogging services.