Chinese entrepreneurs yesterday sent a strong signal that they have put the global economic downturn behind them when they swarmed the China Central Television (CCTV) building to splurge tens of billions of yuan on the network's prime-time advertising slots for next year.

They were there as the national broadcast giant began its annual auction, raising bids totaling 10.97 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in about 13 hours. This year's bids were the highest for 16 years, up 18.5 percent on last year's 9.26 billion yuan, said CCTV.

Sichuan-based alcohol maker, Langjiu Group, won yesterday's first bid, committing 33 million yuan for the exclusive right to have its name associated with the top scorer list during next year's soccer World Cup in South Africa. Li Mingzheng, deputy general manager of Langjiu, said the company spent 400 million yuan in total.