The sixth book in the hugely successful series, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince', will be published on July 16.

"We have to prepare to quickly issue the Chinese version to deal with the pirates, which issued fake books last year," said Wang Ruiqin, editor of the series at the People's Literature Publishing Company.

According to the Guangming booklovers' website, the publisher launched the Chinese edition of the fifth Harry Potter book in September 2003, just three months after the original version came out in June that year.

But it was still not soon enough with online editions of the book appearing only a month after the original English version was launched. Pirated hardcopy versions hit stores in China soon after.

Violations of intellectual property rights are rampant in China, from music and films on DVDs to books in print.

Pirated books are widely stocked in small neigbourhood bookshops and sold on ubiquitous hawkers' tricycles across Chinese cities.

Sales of the Potter books, while not outselling traditional Chinese children's stories, have so far outstripped sales of other Western children's books in China, like Pinocchio and Alice in Wonderland.

AFP