January 30, 1998 (DALIAN, China) -- China began production of DVDs in Dalian, in northeast China's Liaoning province.

The China Hualu Matsushita Video Co., Ltd., a Sino-Japanese joint venture in Dalian, expects to turn out 500 DVDs in January 1998, and the output will be doubled from February.

The company, built at a cost of 24 billion yen (US$160 million), is the largest joint venture ever funded by Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. in China.

The company has an annual production capacity of 1.8 million videorecorder cores and 600,000 videorecorders.

(Xinhua News Agency)