The international telecom show, which began on Tuesday and runs through Saturday, attracted the most overseas participants - telecom operators, in this case - as well as equipment vendors, compared with other shows in China.

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's top mobile telecom carrier, said it was looking for Chinese partners and waiting for the country's entry into the World Trade Organization, which will allow foreign carriers to operate in the Chinese market.

Tomoko Homma, spokeswoman of NTT DoCoMo, said the company hopes to develop its business in China as the world's first mobile carrier to adopt third generation technology.

Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, SK Telecom and China's seven major telecom carriers, have all attended the show, and also hope to find potential partners.

According to figures released on Tuesday by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), China had a registered 300 million telephone users by the end of September.

The number of mobile phone users, 131 million, has made China the largest mobile telecom market in the world.

Yet the figures are still far from the government's blueprint for 2005, which says telephone users should reach 500 million in China, of which 300 million use mobile phones.

The government has adopted a heavy investment policy to boost the telecom industry, which the equipment vendors expect will continue for the coming years.

China's telecom companies jointly invested 139.7 billion yuan (US$16.9 billion) in the first nine months of the year, and the accumulated revenue in the same period reached 257.6 billion yuan (US$31.1 billion), according to the MII.

(China Daily October 24, 2001)