China's Network to Rank First in the WorldLiu He, deputy executive director of the State Information Center, forecasted at a recent symposium that China's network scale will possibly rank first in the world by 2005, the popularization rate of telephone will reach 36 percent, the annual growth rate of information service will exceed 30 percent and the major projects of e-administration and e-business will press ahead in an all-round way.Liu said that during the past five years, information industry has seen a growth rate tripling that of GDP, there are 210 million users of telephone, nearly 19 percent of Chinese population, the network scale of China's fixed and mobile phones has ranked second in the world, the population of netizens is expected to reach 2 million and there has been a rapid growth of computers, networks, data services and software operation. This trend will go forward further during theˇ°10th Five-year Planˇ±period. He said that in expediting the informationization process, China will focus in the following key areas: strengthening infrastructure construction, building a national information network of a fairly large scale, with a reasonable structure, high-speed broad band and being geared to the 21st century; widely popularizing and applying information technology in the fields of agriculture, energy, transportation, construction and manufacturing industries, and vigorously developing e-business; deepening the popularization and application of information technology in the key areas of government affairs, finance, technology and education, television and broadcasting, international trade, medical and health undertaking, social security and public services, and creating an external environment for the constant improvement of informationization;; supporting the development of integrated circuit, software, computer communication as well as network products and equipment, so as to form the production capacity and competitiveness to meet domestic demands and increase exports. By PD Online staff Deng Gang |
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