As the New Millennium's Day approaches, many Chinese people intend to send electronic cards to friends through the Internet rather than traditional paper cards.

Li Yi, a staff member at a Beijing-based company, has the habit of surfing the Internet, and he now has one more thing to do -- send electronic cards to his friends. He said it only takes him about two minutes to log-on, choose a card, fill out the forms, select pictures, and send it.

It was much more time-consuming to mail paper cards years ago. "I sometimes got frustrated because the cards and envelops would cost me half a day," he said.

Ma Binbin, a designer at the Art Studio of Sohu, one of China's largest search engines (http:// www.sohu.com), told Xinhua that his company's website is visited about six million times a day and more than half of the visitors click the button for free electronic cards on the web page.

Ma said that by the end of late July, about four million Chinese people had access to the Internet and that he believes this figure has doubled in December. "The number will continue to rise as the government has recently cut the fees for Internet time, and the New Millennium is coming," he added.

Official statistics show that 4,000 paper cards use the wood of a full-grown tree, and a ton of paper pulp will use 15 to 16 trees 10 meters high and 20 centimeters in diameter.

Experts say, it is too much for China, a country with a huge population of more than 1.2 billion and a tiny forested area of less than 14 percent of its territory. They added that there is also pollution brought about by the chemicals used in paper production.

Ma said, "electronic cards can not only help people say hello to each other via the Internet, but also save trees and even the planet, so many people call the electronic card a 'green card'."

Wang Xin, a design director at Sohu, said that in order to attract more people, especially those between 20 and 40 in age, the free electronic cards will have a variety of styles, such as Chinese traditional, western, classic and those designed for Christmas and the New Millennium Day.

She said that a competition for "Green Card" design through the Internet, the first of its kind in China, is underway at a website called "Chinese people" (http://www.ChinaRen.com).

According to Wang, it also costs less money to send green cards. At present, an ordinary paper card costs about two yuan (0.25 US dollars), but an electronic card costs less than 0.2 yuan, she added.

When Christmas and New Year's Day approached in the past, the huge number of cards would often force post offices to announce that they could not guarantee timely deliveries, and required additional postage to insure quick deliveries. This year, however, these notices have not appeared.

"Fewer people are coming here to buy cards this year, even though they are of high quality and finely designed," said a shopkeeper in the bustling Xidan district of Beijing. "Last year my cards sold very well."

However, not everyone has said bye-bye to paper cards. After buying ten cards for his family and friends, a soldier who repairs aircraft said he did even think of using electronic cards but the Internet is unavailable in his office and he does not own a computer.

He thinks green cards may be good for environmental protection. "When I can afford it, I will certainly say hello to my parents by green card," said the young soldier who is from a remote village in China. (Xinhua)