The China-US deal on China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) has given an impetus to the country's ongoing reform of the telecommunications industry, said Wu Jichuan, minister of information industry.

"Without entry into the WTO, the reform of China's telecom business would still be cruising along its set course," said Wu at an interview with Caijing, the latest monthly edition of Securities Market Weekly. "The signing of the Sino-US agreement on China's WTO entry has made the issue of the telecom reform only more urgent," he said.

Many WTO member countries allow foreign investors to hold 20-40percent of the shares in their telecommunications sector, and China has promised even bigger shares after joining the WTO, said the minister.

This demonstrates the China's government's sincere desire for accession into the WTO, he said, adding that China is still a developing country and can hardly meet requirements that are too high for its reality.

"We have made this promise during our transition period to a market economy, at a time when there is not a special law on telecommunications and the legal system is not yet complete and sound," Wu said.

In 1997, China Telecom restructured its mobile communications business to set up an independent company, which was later listed in the Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges. Foreign investors hold 25 percent of the share capital of China Telecom (Hong Kong), which has six provincial mobile telecommunications companies.

"In fact, we have met the requirements as determined in the Sino-US agreement as early as two years ago," Wu said.

In 1998, China took the bold step to separate its postal services from the telecommunications business. A year later, China divided the China Telecom into four companies, setting up fixed telephone, mobile telephone and satellite communication businesses while transferring the paging service to China Unicom.

Wu said that his ministry will soon release a set of regulations on the management of Internet service providers (ISPs), adding that the ministry approves and supervises ISP businesses and is not responsible for approving Internet content providers (ICPs).

"Of course, the Ministry of Information Industry must know the content of the ICP before connecting it an ISP," he said.

The minister also hinted there would be adjustments in telephone call charges, saying that charges on long distance calls and international calls are higher than what they should be while those on city calls and mobile service are lower.