Government efforts to reduce telecommunication fees are paying off, and may ease consumers' complaints that the prices charged by the monopoly giants are too high. Despite a background of rising inflation in 2007, the telecommunication fees fell by 13.6 percent year-on-year, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) announced on Wednesday at the 2008 annual meeting of telecommunication services.

The level of telecommunication fees has been lowered by 53 percent in five years, said Jiang Yaoping, MII deputy Minister, without disclosing further details.

"We should continue to push forward the reform. Let the price be determined mainly through market competition, but under government macro-control. An efficient and fair price supervision mechanism over the industry should be established," said Jiang.

Earlier this month, the ministry and National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) jointly announced a price cut on mobile roaming service charges by between 54 percent and 73 percent depending on locality, after they held a public hearing on the issue.

The number of the country's telecommunication users has reached more than 900 million, including 366 million fixed lines and 547 million mobile users, said Jiang.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2008)