News from a recent National Autumn Fair on telecommunications commodities held in south China' s Guilin City said that China needs six million km of optic fiber next year,

China's optic fiber telecommunications market has been expanding at an annual rate of 20 percent. This growth rate will continue until 2002.

Optic fibers are needed in making fiber-optic cables for China' s telecommunications industry. As China has a limited capacity in producing optic fiber, the country has to import about 70 percent of its total optic fiber from abroad. In 1997, for instance, China spent over 200 million US dollars in importing optic fiber from overseas.

China has 1.5 million km optic fiber cables across the country.