Vice-Minister of Information Industry of China Jiang Yaoping
said on Tuesday that China will take more effective measures to
bridge the digital divide between its urban and rural areas.
Addressing the opening ceremony of the China Day of the current
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom World 2006,
Jiang said that the rural and urban areas of the country are still
provided with unbalanced level of information industry
infrastructure.
Jiang said that as a developing country, China still has a long
way to go in providing universal telecommunication services.
In the past years, China has made some progress in this regard
through carrying out projects like "telephone linkage to
villages",said Jiang, citing that 98.8 percent of Chinese villages
are now connected with outside world with telephones.
China Day, the first in the history of ITU's Telecom World
exhibition in 34 years, is seen as a climax of exchanges between
Chinese telecommunication industry and its counterparts around the
world.
Secretary-General of the ITU Yoshio Utsumi and Secretary for
Finance of Hong Kong government Henry Tang also gave speeches at
Tuesday's opening ceremony of the China Day.
(Xinhua News Agency December 6, 2006)