Foreign anti-virus vendors set to lose approved status

China has reportedly excluded the United States' Symantec Corp and Russia's Kaspersky Lab from a list of approved anti-virus software vendors in a move that marks the latest attempt to reduce reliance on overseas software providers amid rising awareness of cybersecurity.

With the rapidly increasing innovation capacity of Chinese companies and rising concerns over information security after Edward Snowden's revelations of a National Security Agency spying program, analysts said that high-tech firms in China are heading to a rosy future in the domestic market.

The People's Daily reported on Sunday that the government's procurement agency "has excluded Symantec and Kaspersky" from a list of security software suppliers.