The provincial department of information industry said the province was eyeing giant information enterprises in Russia, the Republic of Korea, Japan, India and China's Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan for investment and cooperation to develop its information industry.

Development priority would be given to the key cities of Qingdao, Yantai, Weihai as well as the cities along the railways, the source said.

The province's major enterprises were expected to undertake such cooperation projects which will mainly develop processing with incoming materials and manufacture complete sets of equipment, the source added.

The province had expanded Sino-foreign cooperation in the information industry ever since 2002 and approved establishment of 255 enterprises the same year, up 73 percent over the previous year.

In addition, the province absorbed foreign investment totaling US$570 million in the information sector in 2002, up 121 percent over the previous year.

There were 29 projects each with investment exceeding US$10 million. Some of the world's largest enterprises, including LG and Ericsson, had participated in the cooperation, the source said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2003)