The online TOEFL test (Test of English as a Foreign Language) will offer 100,000 seats to residents of the Chinese mainland in 2008 in a bid to meet the surging demand of the Chinese market, according to China's National Education Examinations Authority (NEEA).

"Seats for the exam will keep rising next year," said Zhang Jin, an official with the NEEA, estimating that the figure will increase by at least 80 percent compared with 2007, though the total number of 2007 online TOEFL seats in China is still not available.

The sharp increase is due to the surging demand from the Chinese market as more and more people sign up for the test in an attempt to study overseas, Zhang said.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education shows that in 2006 more than 130,000 Chinese went abroad for further study and an average of 75,000 people take TOEFL every year.

The test opens its online application service at toefl.etest.net.cn on Monday and will be due three days before the test. The test will be held in 87 examination rooms for 32 rounds across the Chinese mainland next year.

NEEA joined hands with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), the promoter of TOEFL in the United States, to launch the online TOEFL test in China in September 2006.

Up to now, more than 6,000 colleges and universities in 110 countries rely on TOEFL to measure the English-language skills of their students, according to ETS.