BEIJING - The number of public accounts by government agencies on WeChat, a popular instant messaging service, increased substantially in 2014, according to a Tuesday report.

At least 17,217 government WeChat accounts are active, according to the report from xinhuanet.com.

The figure is a remarkable increase from a July report by the Communication University of China (CUC), which said that at the end of 2013 there were 3,600 government WeChat accounts, and nearly 6,000 at the end of March.

About 20 percent now belong to Communist Party of China (CPC) organizations, people's congresses (legislatures) and the committees of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (political advisors).

Government accounts had sent some 3 million pieces of information by Nov 30.

For example, "gcdyweixin" is a WeChat of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee and operated by xinhuanet.com. Launched in June, regularly updates include news on Party organizations, introductions to role models for CPC members, and general knowledge spanning Chinese classics, history and other subjects of interest.

The report also revealed that governmental accounts on popular microblogging services including Sina Weibo and Tencent Microblog totaled 277,000 at the end of November, 219 operated by the central government, attracting about 270 million followers in total.

Meanwhile, the governments at all levels are using apps. Apps run by traffic managers, public security and weather forecasters are popular, with 12306 -- the official ticket booking app of the China Railway Corporation -- topping the download list.