A U.S. company announced Monday it officially launched its China-based business search platform, from which internet users can search information about companies and businesses in English, Chinese and Spanish.

The launch was made at the Search Engine Strategies 2007 Conference and Expo in San Jose, California, according to a statement issued by Tyloon, a startup internet company based in Los Angeles.

Tyloon said its China business search platform has 12 million Chinese businesses listed and for the first time ever users can search them in the three languages, separately or mixed.

There are quite a few Chinese yellow pages services on the internet but none of them allows users to search nationwide China businesses in multiple languages as Tyloon China does, according to the company.

Unlike yellow pages where search results are usually restricted to a small area, such as a single city or zip code, the Tyloon China search platform gives users nationwide plus regional search results by country or province, as well as local business information by zip code, city, or phone area code.

Tyloon officials said that even search engine giants like Yahoo and Google have not solved the issue of how to search business information of companies in a foreign country in one's own language yet.

"You would get very few China business search results on major search engines if your search keywords are in English or Spanish. Just as searching U.S.-based business information in Chinese would yield very few results from major search engines," said Barry Su, president of Tyloon.

"That's because very few China business websites are in English and Spanish, and very few American business websites are in Chinese, so there is no way for search engine spiders to collect this kind of information for users," he added.

Su said that Tyloon's service would enable the "outside world" to search for information about Chinese companies, manufacturers, hotels, restaurants and other businesses in their own languages easily and conveniently.

Tyloon expects its China business search service will become a most useful online tool for visitors who plan to attend the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, to be held in the Chinese capital city in August next year.