China's home appliances giant Haier has announced that the nation's first TV sets with Mongolian instructions will soon hit the market in Inner Mongolia.

The language of Mongolian is used by ten provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China.

Although a number of Mongolian language TV stations air in these regions, all instructions and displays on TV sets are either in Chinese or English. Both these languages are difficult for Mongolians living in remote areas.

A representative from Haier said that to satisfy the need of ethnic groups, the Qingdao-based group would continue to produce TV sets featuring the languages of Uigur, Tibetan and Korean.

Apart from the majority Han ethnic group, there are 55 other ethnic minorities in the world's most populous country. Most of them have their own written and spoken languages.

The Chinese government has made it a national policy to encourage and protect the use of minority languages.

(Xinhua News Agency June 23, 2002)