Street vendors near the office of letters and calls, the national complaint office in Beijing, are doing brisk business selling new versions of booklets that purport to list the names, addresses and phone numbers of hundreds of central government offices and high-ranking officials. 

The crudely printed booklets are unofficially published and sold mainly to outsiders who come to Beijing to lodge a complaint about an injustice they suffered in their home jurisdiction.

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in November, the vendors have been peddling an updated version, one of which features on the cover a photo of Xi Jinping, newly elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

Vendors sell 10 booklets including a government address book, leaders contact list, traffic regulations and an explanation of laws relating to petitioning.

The booklets sell for 6 yuan ($0.96) each.

Vendors say the booklet titled Contacts for National Leaders and the Letters and Calls Systems is their bestseller. It includes photographs of dozens of national officials as well as their office addresses. It even claims to include Premier Wen Jiabao's email address.

A wholesale vendor, surnamed Wang, told the Global Times that all the details in the booklets were gleaned online.

The back covers of a number of the booklets contain a single character for the word "injustice." A booklet's front cover consists of a cartoon with the characters for "petition, appeal, resist." 

The back cover also contains Wang's contact information who said in a telephone interview that he edits and sells the booklets wholesale to street vendors.

Wang, 43, from Liaoning Province, told the Global Times that selling the booklets helps him earn some cash while he pursues his own petition.

"After local law enforcement officers treated me wrongly, I came to Beijing to petition. By selling these materials I can help other petitioners and sustain myself here," Wang said.

Another vendor who said she had been selling the booklets for two years told the Global Times she bought them for 3 yuan each.

"Sales peak during political events. I can sell as many as 40 a day during a big meeting," she said.

She sold two copies during a 5-minute interview.

A petitioner from Zhejiang Province told the Global Times the booklets were too expensive and provided little useful information.

"I still have last year's version, which cost me 3 yuan and had President Hu Jintao's picture on the cover. The new ones are fancier and in color but I would bet they are also useless," she said, adding that the calls she made to phone numbers listed in last year's edition were never answered.