Nearly 99 percent of Chinese administrative villages had telephone services by the end of 2006, according to the country's Ministry of Information Industry.

 

Latest statistics showed that telephone service had reached 98.85 percent of administrative villages across the country. 24 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions now have all their administrative villages connected to the national telephone grid.

 

Wang Xudong, Minister of Information Industry, said China would provide telephone service to all administrative villages in the country by the end of 2007, adding that equipment maintenance and service management across remote villages will be improved with charges being lowered to more affordable levels.

 

"We will guarantee all the villagers satisfactory telephone service at low cost," said Wang.

 

Statistics show that more than 744 million Chinese lived in the country's rural areas by the end of 2005.

 

China now has 830 million fixed and mobile telephone subscribers, with 132 million Internet users.

 

The Ministry of Information Industry has set the goal of 2010 for providing telephone service to all administrative villages and Internet service to all townships.

 

Earlier reports said China has invested 200 billion yuan in extending telephone services to the country's 70,000 administrative villages over the past two years, and has built 6,389 agricultural websites by November to provide information services on agriculture machine, trade and labor services, all of which are well received by farmers.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)