Beijing: Young farmers and migrant workers in China's vast rural areas are increasingly becoming Internet savvy, with the number of rural Internet users reaching 37.41 million by the end of June, statistics revealed here.

The rural surfers account for approximately 5.1 per cent of the total village population in China. Statistics from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the top planning body, show that at the same time urban netizens had reached 125 million, or 21.6 per cent of urban population. China's rural net users were 23.1 million at the end of 2006, indicating that in six month period, 14.3 million farmers got access to the Internet.

NDRC's report said the rapidly improving telecommunications infrastructure in rural areas has obviously facilitated the increase of net users. In its 11th Five-Year Programme (2006-2010), the Ministry of Information Industry has vowed to extend phone service to every village and enable every township access to Internet. The main force behind the rural net users are young farmers and migrant workers, who use computers to enjoy on-line music, games and videos as skilfully as their urban counterparts.

However, rural surfers rarely use the Internet for news, on-line shopping, on-line banking and trading stocks, the report said. In some villages, the Internet has been used for special purposes featuring agricultural information and technologies and price information of farm produce, among others.