KEY POINTS:
New Zealander Peter Dean is printing bibles in China and expects to produce more than 3.5 million of the books this year.
Mr Dean, who has been working at China's only authorised publisher of the book, Amity Press, said the demand is so great he has difficulty keeping up, the Times newspaper reported in London.
Amity this weekend published its 50 millionth copy of the bible, and early next year it will move into a new, much larger factory on the edge of the eastern city of Nanjing to become the world's single-biggest producer of bibles.
The bible has become one of the country's bestselling books, despite the fact that its teachings have been in conflict with the forces of Communism for generations.
In the ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976, bibles were burnt as tomes of superstition.
Now demand for the bible is soaring at a time when meteoric economic growth is testing the China's allegiance to Communist doctrine.
Mr Dean, of the United Bible Societies, has been in China at Amity since 1991, said that of the 50 million bibles Amity has printed, 41 million were for the faithful in Chinese and eight minority languages.
The rest have been for export to Russia and Africa. Sales surged from 505,000 in 1988 to a high of 6.5 million in 2005. Output last year was 3.5 million and this year's production will be higher.
One of Mr Dean's bestsellers is a pocket Bible, a version not suitable for the older generation to read, which he said might indicate a rapid expansion in the number of new, younger believers.
With China's economy booming, Amity expects even higher demand when its new factory opens, he said.
- NZPA
