BEIJING, April 20 (Xinhua) -- About 82.9 percent of Chinese minors under the age of 17 read books in 2019, 2.5 percentage points higher than in 2018, according to a national reading survey released Monday.

Chinese minors read 10.36 books per capita last year, increasing by 1.45 year on year, said the survey conducted by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication.

It also noted that over 70 percent of children aged below eight read books in 2019, up 2.6 percentage points from the previous year, while 97.9 percent of respondents between nine and 13 reading in 2019 as against 96.3 percent in 2018.

Teenagers aged between 14 and 17 read the largest number of extracurricular books with the figure reaching to 12.79 in 2019, up 1.23 year on year, and the number in the age group between nine and 13 was 9.33, slightly decreasing from 9.49 in 2018.

The survey, the 17th of its kind, had a sample size of 21,270 people from 29 provincial-level regions.