Twenty-four million Chinese small and medium enterprises are getting an additional push to go online from the China Internet Network Information Center with a project aimed at bridging the digital divide among different regions in the mainland and stimulate growth in online businesses.

The CNNIC launched a program called "Project Growth" at the end of June which offers a suite of options including domain registration support, Website building assistance, and tips on online marketing for SMEs.

There are over 24 million companies in China, but only about 400,000 have their own Websites, according to statistics provided by the CNNIC. More than half of the Websites attract only less than 50 pageviews a day.

Internet penetration in China is 8.5 percent, compared with 15.7 percent in developed countries. There are more than 111 million Internet users in China.

The drive, which began in Beijing, will eventually be extended to 56 cities nationwide, covering the eastern coastal and mid-western regions.

The CNNIC plans to promote the use of Chinese and top level domains, URLs for WAP, as well as offer solutions in online marketing with the help of domain registrars, with the aim to help SMEs increase their competitive edge through the Internet.

There are more than a million Chinese domains, or domains ending with ".cn" to date, according to Cao Jianlin, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"SMEs will have to think about how they should grab the opportunities for growth amidst increasing demand for domains and how they could stand out from the crowd through online marketing," he said.

Editor: Yan