Chinese have sex for the first time at an average age of 22.1 years, according to the 2007 Face of Global Sex report published on Tuesday by condom manufacturer Durex.

The global average age is 17.

Professor Gao Ersheng from the Shanghai Family Planning Institute said the mean age was about the same as that at which people in China get married, although incidents of premarital sex were on the rise.

"In urban China, the age at which people have their first sex is probably lower than 22," he said.

The Durex report surveyed more than 26,000 people from 26 countries and found the global average age for first-time sex had risen from under 16 to over 17 since last year.

The report found that while most respondents from Asian countries such as China, Singapore and Malaysia said they had their first sexual experience later than their peers in the West, they also said they were better prepared psychologically.

The report also showed that 81.5 percent of those polled had used a form of birth control. China ranked in the top 3 in this regard.

Women were found to be more likely to take precautions, as too were people with a higher educational background.

However, Gao said he believed no more than half of China's youth used condoms or other precautions during first-time sex.

"According to earlier national surveys, only a quarter of those having premarital sex for the first time used a condom," he told China Daily.

In recent years, there has been more attention paid to raising people's awareness¹ of sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, Gao said. This has led to the more widespread use of condoms in urban China, but there has been no obvious rise in rural areas.

"Many youngsters believe their sex partners won't have an STD," Gao said, "and abortion² seems easy - you hear commercials for 'painless abortions³' quite often."

But among China's high-risk groups, such as sex workers, the use of condoms has increased greatly, Gao said.

In another survey on sexual well-being⁴ by Durex this year, just 42 percent of Chinese people said they were completely satisfied with their sex life. The satisfaction rate is lower among women.

According to the report, Chinese have sex an average of 122 times a year - higher than the global average.