GOOGLE is adopting a new name in China in an attempt to increase its presence in the booming economy.

The move comes as it emerged that Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry “smartphone”, expects to launch its device in China this year.

Google will now be known in Chinese as Gu Ge, which means “harvesting song”, a name that Google said conveyed “the sense of a fruitful and productive search experience, in a poetic Chinese way”.

Sources said that some Chinese media and internet users have rendered the name of the company as “Gougou” and “Gugou”, which reports have said are translated as “doggy” and “old hound”.

Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, who is on his first official visit to China, announced the new name at a ceremony in Beijing with Kai-Fu Lee and Johnny Chou, co-presidents of Google Greater China. Dr Schmidt said: “We are committed to providing Chinese-language users with easier ways to identify and access Google as well as to providing them with more products, better tools and greater access to information.”

The group has announced plans to open a new research centre in Beijing, where it expects to employ about 100 engineers by the middle of this year. This number is expected to increase significantly.

China, which now has more than 100 million internet- users, has also attractive RIM, which is expected to launch its BlackBerry there this summer with China Mobile.

China, the world’s largest telecommunications market, offers huge growth potential for RIM. China Mobile, the world’s top cellular carrier by subscribers, holds two thirds of the market. China is expected to become the largest mobile market, with 580 million subscribers, by 2010.

However, One of China Mobile’s main rivals, the network operator China Unicom, recently launched its own “smart” e-mail service, called RedBerry.

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