A prefecture that has many ethnic Koreans among its population plans to launch satellite TV and radio services in their own language next year.

The preparation work will be completed in April 2006 in the Korean Autonomous Prefecture of Yanbian in northeast China's Jilin Province.

About 43 million yuan (US$5 million) will be invested in the project, including equipment that is already being installed and adjusted. The central government will cover 20 million yuan (US$2.5 million) of the annual maintenance cost.

The TV programs will be aired 16 hours a day in both Korean and Chinese. The bilingual programs will feature news, overseas programs and domestically-produced soap dramas. Each program will be broadcast with Korean and Chinese subtitles.

The radio programs, consisting of 20 news, entertainment and interactive programs in Korean, will be operated around the clock.

The project will develop in three stages. Initially it will cover just the prefecture, then the Korean communities in Liaoning Province, Heilongjiang Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and finally encompass the Korean communities in southeast China and in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
 
(Xinhua News Agency December 27, 2005)