The sales volume in China's integrated circuit market reached 94.51 billion yuan (US$11.67 billion) in the third quarter of this year, up 25.5 percent from a year earlier, a market report said Wednesday.

The growth rate, only 0.8 percent higher than the second quarter, indicated a trend of slowdown in the development of the sector, said the report released by the China Center for Information Industry Development, citing unfavorable global factors in the semiconductor field as the reason.

In the July-September period, China imported US$21.56 billion worth of integrated circuits, up 38.3 percent year on year, and exported US$3.68 billion, up 39.4 percent.

The center predicted that China's integrated circuit sales would hit 101.32 billion yuan (US$12.5 billion) in the fourth quarter of this year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 17, 2005)