Zhang Chunjiang, vice-minister of the Information Industry Ministry, told the seminar that China has witnessed rapid development in this field in the past few years.

Statistics show that by 2000, China had 1.25 million km of fiber-optic cables and 22.5 million Internet users.

"The Internet has greatly changed the way we communicate, work and play," Zhang said. But he said China still lags behind developed countries in the development of the Internet.

China has put the development of information technology high on its agenda for the next five years, in hopes that the utilization of advanced information technology will help promote its productivity.

According to the plan, China will build the world's largest fixed and mobile phone networks over the next five years. The development of high-speed Internet will gain government support to solve the bottleneck of bandwidth in the period.

Zhang said that many companies are enthusiastic about the development of the Internet, especially in the fields of Internet access and information resources. However, he warned investors to take into consideration of the risks and not to rush in and rush out.

(xinhua 05/18/2001)