China needs more clergymen to serve the growing number of Catholics in the country, when the number of believers has grown from less than two million just 50 years ago to more than 5.3 million currently, a political adviser said yesterday.

More than 100,000 people in China convert to Catholicism annually.

Although the number of priests has increased from 1,100 in the early 1950s to more than 1,900 today, there are still too few to serve the country's millions of believers, said Liu Bainian, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

China now has 97 Catholic parishes, but 42 have no bishops, and in 29 parishes the bishops are over the age of 85, said Liu, vice president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

The opening of China's largest seminary in Beijing last September is expected to help address the problem, he said.

The National Seminary of the Catholic Church in China, located in Daxing District of Beijing, has invited 24 foreign and Chinese professors to give lectures and help train priests, Liu said.

The Chinese government has offered about 74 million yuan (US$9.2 million) to fund the construction of the seminary.