China's booming information industry is expected to maintain its robust health in the coming years, according to a senior government official.

The added value generated by the information industry is forecast to hit 2.6 trillion yuan (US$333 billion) by 2010, accounting for 10 percent of the country's GDP (gross domestic product), according to Lou Qinjian, deputy chief of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).

That compares to 7.2 percent in 2005 and 4 percent in 2000.

"The information industry has become a pillar industry of China's national economy," Lou said, adding that a continued boom in the coming years would lay the foundations for China to become an information and communications technology (ICT) powerhouse.

According to a blueprint jointly issued by the MII and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), revenues from the country's ICT industry are expected to grow by 17.6 percent annually to reach 10 trillion yuan (US$1.28 trillion) by 2010.

The telecoms industry is expected to play a vital role in maintaining the rapid growth of the overall information industry.

The blueprint forecast that the country would have 1 billion telephone users by 2010, including 400 million fixed-line telephone subscribers and 600 million mobile phone users.

According to statistics released by the MII yesterday, China had 369 million fixed-line users and 467 million mobile phone subscribers by the end of January.

The growth in the number of fixed-line subscriptions is apparently slowing due to the increasingly mobile lifestyle in the country.

In January, the country's fixed-line operators signed up 1.03 million users, while there were 6.32 million newly added mobile phone subscribers.

With voice services increasingly going mobile, the government is expected to soon award fixed-line telephone operators China Telecom and China Netcom with licenses to move into the mobile telecoms market, which should boost mobile phone penetration in the country, industry analysts said.

The number of Chinese Internet users is expected to reach 200 million by 2010, with the penetration hitting 15 percent, according to the blueprint.

Under the definitions laid out in the blueprint, Internet users refer to those who spend at least one hour on the Web each week.

According to the China Internet Networks Information Centre (CNNIC), a quasi-government organization, China had 137 million Internet users by the end of last year, an increase of 23.4 percent year-on-year.

The number of broadband users hit 90.7 million by 2006, up 41.1 percent year-on-year, while about 17 million mobile phones users now use their handsets to access the Internet, CNNIC said.

(China Daily March 2, 2007)