Google has announced that it will sell its minority stake in Chinese search engine Baidu.com. 

The search giant owns just 2.6 per cent of Baidu, but has decided to sell up to concentrate on its own service in the region, Google China. 

Google will still profit from the sale, however, as shares in Baidu have risen to $80 since their opening price of $27 last year.

The $5m (£2.74m) worth of shares that Google owns are now worth more than $60m (£33m).

Google had previously dismissed rumours that it was going to close Google China because of Chinese government censorship.