The world's largest internet search company, Google, says the Chinese government is blocking its Gmail service, after users reported trouble gaining access to the site.

Users of Gmail in China have had difficulty accessing accounts, sending email and using other features of the service for the past two weeks. The landing page for the web mail service is still visible to internet users in China.

''There is no technical issue on our side,'' California-based Google said in a statement. ''We have checked extensively. This is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail.''

China, the world's largest internet market with 457 million users, bans pornography, gambling and content critical of the ruling Communist Party. It already blocks Google's YouTube site as well as social-networking websites run by Facebook and Twitter. Google moved its search-engine service out of mainland China last year and redirected users to Hong Kong to avoid having to comply with the country's censorship rules.

The chief of the Information Office Internet Affairs Bureau of China's State Council, Li Wufeng, did not return a call to his office yesterday. In an interview 11 days ago, after Gmail users began reporting problems in China, Mr Li said he regularly used Gmail and that he was not experiencing the issues reported by other users of the service in China.