Officials from the Ministry of Information Industry attending the ongoing Sino-Russia Information and Telecom Seminar revealed China's Telecom trade volume will reach 1.05 trillion yuan by 2005, an increase of 2.5 percent over 2000.

It's predicted during the "10th Five-year Plan" period the number of China's telephone users is going to rise at an annual average of 26 percent, of which 24 percent in the country's east, 26 percent in central China and 30 percent in the west. The number of telephone users throughout China will hit 500 million by 2005.

More and more ordinary consumers will join China's mobile phone users. Mobile phone business will expand from simple call to data exchange, intermediate and advanced multi-media trade.

During the "10th Five-year Plan", data and Internet users in China will increase at an annual growth rate of 70 percent. Internet users will be over 200 million by 2005.

(People's Daily April 08, 2002)