China is now the top producer of color TVs, audio products and program controlled switches, and a major provider of computer related products, the MII report said.

In the year 2000, Chinese companies produced 37.42 million color TV sets, 46.57 million lines of program-controlled switches, 8.6 million computer units and 52.1 mobile phone units.

The total sales revenue from manufacturing electronic information products reached 580 billion yuan (US$70.05 billion) in the year 2000, which is a 34 percent higher than the previous year.

But China still does not have important core technology and has to import most of the chips used in its IT products, like computers and mobile phones.

Without this core technology, analysts say that China's IT industry will continue to operate like a huge assembly line. And due to this, Chinese companies are earning less profit than their foreign counterparts.

To amend the situation, the MII said in its 10th Five-Year-Plan (2001-05), the country will devote the following five to 10 years surmounting the bottleneck in integrated circuitry and software.

Wu Jichuan, minister of the MII, said he hoped Chinese firms would be producing patent-owned chips as soon as possible.

He said the MII plans to set up a nationwide electronic science technology group to monitor the development of the sector.

Wu said he hoped the group could begin operations soon.

Electronic information products are expected to bring in a revenue of 700 billion yuan (US$84.54 billion) this year, according to the MII plan. And the sector will keep up a growth rate of 20 percent in the coming five years.

(China Daily 02/24/2001)