China's Harry Potter fans are now counting down the days for their hero's last appearance on their own website, 52harrypotter.com (means I love Harry Potter). The global release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh book of J. K. Rowling's spectacled boy wonder, on July 21, has China and the world holding its collective breath.

Local media have been speculating about whether the imported books will arrive in China on time for the global release date and what price the final book will sell at on the mainland. But the book's fans have more serious concerns. For them, the possible Chinese translation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and how the author will close down one of the most popular book series of all time is the biggest suspense.

It's all building up to ensure the market for the seventh Harry Potter is way bigger than that for the previous books, and that's not only the Chinese version or the movie adaptation. In fact its the English versions of the series that have been unexpectedly popular in China, ringing up record sales volume of imported books in the country.

The sales volume of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth in the series, exceeded 70,000 copies in 2005, a new record for a single foreign-language book in China, according to Liu Yuan, Director of China Book Import Center under China International Book Trading Corporation, a major importer of the Potter books.

"We also feel confident about the market performance of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this year, and I hope our sales volume will increase by around 20 percent, " Liu told Beijing Review.

She said her company's order from Bloomsbury, publisher of Harry Potter series in Britain, is the largest among other dealers in China. Liu also confirmed that most of the novels she has ordered have already been booked by state-run Xinhua Bookstores across the country, other big book markets and small and private bookshops.

Not only big cities, but medium and small cities across China also have buyers lined up. "Apart from Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province, our books almost cover the entire country," said Liu.

Although most of the Harry Potter books Liu has imported are the children's edition published by Bloomsbury, the company also imported other editions (adult, deluxe, special or box set) of the series either published in Britain or the United States. "Different clients have different demands," Liu said.

According to a reader survey by the China Book Import Center, the majority of book buyers in China are Harry Potter fans, young people, students, or parents who hope to improve the English level of their children. Books of the Harry Potter series are often nice gifts to friends too.

Currently, Liu and her colleagues are busy promoting and selling orders of the English edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but the books final selling price has yet to be determined.