China would replace the United States as the biggest market for the telecommunication industry by the end of next year because of the nation's rapid growth, International Telecommunication Union head strategist said yesterday.

Speaking at a forum on second day of the ITU World 2006 expo, themed as China Day, the union head of the strategy and policy unit Tim Kelly said China had already exceeded the US in mobile communications in 2001 and fixed-line communications in 2002.

With the nation's development of broadband connection, Kelly expected China's Internet market would also exceed US by the end of next year.

Referring to an ITU study of digital opportunity index, released in July, Kelly said that China was ranked 74th out of 180 countries, overriding Pakistan, Indonesia, but was still lagging behind developed countries like Australia.

The nation was ranked second in terms of improvement made in IT policies.

"The index indicates that China's market is full of potential," he said.

Vice-Minister of Information Technology Lou Qinjian also told the forum that China's telecom market was growing.

He said the revenue generated by information industry over the first 10 months this year reached 3.4 trillion yuan (about US$430 billion), representing a growth of 25 per cent.

The trade volume of the industry also reached US$420 billion.

At the China Day opening ceremony, Vice-Minister of Information Industry Jiang Yaoping said: "We will promote the healthy development of information industry, the 3G mobile services and the network."

The government would promote information industry development in remote villages, aiming at increasing phone penetration among villagers.

China Mobile Vice-President Lu Xiangdong said opening the village markets involved difficulty of keeping operation cost low.

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