SHANGHAI (MarketWatch) -- China's securities regulator said Friday it has approved the initial public offering proposal of the People's Daily newspaper's portal to raise around CNY527 million ($83.5 million).

People.cn Co., the website of the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper, said in an IPO filing early this week that it plans to sell 69.1 million new shares, or 25% of its enlarged capital, ahead of a listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

China's state-owned news portals are trying to restructure themselves to better compete with commercial websites such as those of SINA Corp. (SINA) and Sohu.com Inc. (SOHU). Since the launch of www.people.com.cn more than 10 years ago, the site has attracted a lot of Internet users but still "lags far behind" SINA, Sohu and other commercial news portals, the company said in the prospectus.

The company plans to use the IPO proceeds to expand into wireless services, upgrade technology and beef up its editorial team, its prospectus said.

The website, in which the People's Daily holds a close to 80% stake, has 19,608 visitors for every million people, compared with SINA's 247,343 visitors for every million people, according to the prospectus. China Mobile Ltd. (0941.HK, CHL, K3PD.SG), China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. (0762.HK, CHU, K3ID.SG) and China Telecom Corp. Ltd. (0728.HK, CHA, K3ED.SG) are also shareholders in the website.

Net profit at the People's Daily portal nearly quadrupled to CNY81.6 million in 2010 from the year before, with online advertising contributing to about half of its revenue.