A new online dating site has been launched in Shanghai, China. The site, yuanlaishini88.com, which caters for both Chinese and English-speaking hopefuls, aims to attract the professional 25+ market from China and abroad. CEO and founder, Eve La Rosa, says the bi-lingual service will offer a safe and user-friendly environment where busy singles will be able to find their match.

To get things off the ground and build up a client base, Yuanlaishini88 is offering free VIP membership to the first 20,000 members; but if current trends in China’s gigantic online community are anything to go by, they should reach that volume very quickly – provided the site delivers, that is. With some 220 million Internet users, the majority of whom are young, China boasts the largest online population on the globe – and figures are still rising. Social network and dating sites are particularly popular in China, so there is good potential for yuanlaishini88.

As membership of the dating site grows, it will be interesting to see the origin of its members. Over recent years, there has been frequent media coverage about western men, mainly from English-speaking countries, looking for brides-to-be in the Far East and from most accounts their quest appears to have been successful. Whether the majority of English-speakers registering with yuanlaishini88 are of Chinese or western origin, or expatriates (whose Chinese is weak) looking for a partner from their mother-culture – or perhaps expat Chinese dating other expats, only time will tell.