Governments in 24 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have decided to give priority to their informatization processes, officials said.

Relatively better-off places in eastern coastal regions are expected to take the lead by promoting their information industry, while the comparatively underdeveloped central and western regions will be given support to keep the pace, said Zhao Xiaofan, deputy director of the State Informatization Promotion Office.

Addressing a forum Tuesday in Beijing focusing on the information industry, Zhao said never before had informatization been paid such great attention in China.

More and more local governments are mapping out blueprints for informatization development in their localities.

Beijing plans to build more than 10 micro-chip production lines, each following international standards.

Its ambitious goal is to build itself into a micro-electronics industrial base as well as a leader in that field in China or even the world.

East China's Shanghai Municipality, Zhejiang Province and South China's Guangdong Province have all joined in the competition.

In May, Minister of Information Industry Wu Jichuan announced that his ministry had clearly raised the goal of using informatization as a major force to push the industrialization of China, a country that has seen dramatic rapid development of its information industry.

Statistics show that China has become the world's largest cellular phone market. Its mobile phone users surpassed those in the United State in July.

By the end of 2000, China had recorded more than 230 million fixed-phone users.

Within the next five years, the amount of mobile phone users is expected to hit 500 million, and the information industry is expected to increase by at least 20 percent annually.

(China Daily 10/10/2001)