Sunday, September 16, 2001, updated at 11:30(GMT+8)
Business
Communications Industry Makes Remarkable Progress in China's West
A modern communication network has been formed in western China, a top IT official told a conference Saturday.
Dai Shuang, an official of the Ministry of Information Technology, was speaking to a conference on communication and western area development in this capital city of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
He noted that by the end of July this year, the total length of optical fiber cable in the country's west had reached 400,000 kilometers, and 14 percent of the people have telephones.
According to the goal set by the country's tenth five-year plan (2001-05), the western regions will make great efforts to develop the communication industry and shorten the distance between them and the country's eastern areas.