China will launch a unified mobile phone contact list standard which allows 550 million phone users to easily store, copy and move contact information between different handset models, the Ministry of Industry and Information said yesterday.

Under the new UDX (Universal Data eXchange) standard, contacts can be transferred by computers or Bluetooth between two phones, according to the ministry, which didn't say when it will become mandatory.

About 100 million people replace handsets in China annually and they will benefit from the new standard. Presently, some firms provide a similar service which is, however, limited to same models, experts said.

"It's the first national handset contact standard in the world and it may become a global standard,'' said Wen Ku, a senior ministry official yesterday.

Nokia, which confirmed it received notices from the ministry, said it will comply with the national standard and it's doing research on it. The Finnish vendor said users are able to transfer contacts between its models but not on other brands.

(Shanghai Daily March 18, 2008)