BEIJING - China has become the world's largest television series producer after making 15,000 episodes in 2011.

The country is also the world's third biggest film producer, Culture Minister Cai Wu said on Wednesday.

While briefing national lawmakers at a the bi-monthly session (scheduled from October 23 to 26) of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, Cai said, in 2011 China produced 15,000 television series episodes and 558 movies.

It also made 260,000 minutes of animations and 4,000 hours of documentaries.

Circulation of daily newspapers also ranked number one in the world, with 1,928 newspapers and 9,849 journals competing in the press market.

Cai said in 2011, more than 3,000 novels were published, 1,000 new operas debuted and 1.55 million performances by a domestic cast were staged.

A total of 370,000 books, amounting to 7.71 billion copies, were published.