The number of Communist Party of China (CPC) members has exceeded 80 million, a senior CPC official said Friday.

The CPC had 80.269 million members by the end of last year, Wang Qinfeng, deputy head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, said at a press conference.

Among them, 18.03 million are women and 5.338 million are people from ethnic minority groups, accounting for 22.5 percent and 6.6 percent of the total respectively, according to Wang.

In terms of occupation, the group of farmers, herders and fishers, numbering 24.427 million, is the largest, while 6.989 million Party members are workers, he said.

Another 6.812 million members work in Party and state agencies, and 18.413 million are managerial staff and professional technicians working in enterprises and non-profitable organizations, and 2.539 million are students, according to Wang.

(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2011)