BEIJING, March 25 (Reuters) - China has imposed regulations on online trading of audio-visual products as part of its efforts to bring the budding Internet industry under its control, the official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday. China will forbid websites from conducting business in imported audio visual products, MP3 music downloads and wholesale trading, Xinhua quoted the Ministry of Culture as saying. Any website with foreign investment would be barred from doing online business in audio-visual products, Xinhua said. Authorised traders are also required to show the numbers of their operating licenses and the telephone number of the issuing departments on their web pages, Xinhua said. It also said violators would be punished by the audio-visual market supervision department, and current online audio-visual product dealers must obtain relevant licenses before May 1. China has made a flurry of attempts to rein in the Internet. Earlier this year, China clamped new regulations on the Internet designed to stop leaks of ``state secrets,'' making operators of Internet bulletin boards, chat rooms and news groups responsible for any security breach. State media have said China was crafting rules that could prevent sites from hiring their own reporters, starving them of interesting content. China has also demanded all companies and individuals officially register for approval to use encryption technology, which protects electronic communication from eavesdropping.
