Nearly 99 percent of Chinese administrative villages had
telephone services by the end of 2006, according to the country's
Ministry of Information Industry.
Latest statistics showed that telephone service had reached
98.85 percent of administrative villages across the country. 24
provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions now have all their
administrative villages connected to the national telephone
grid.
Wang Xudong, Minister of Information Industry, said China would
provide telephone service to all administrative villages in the
country by the end of 2007, adding that equipment maintenance and
service management across remote villages will be improved with
charges being lowered to more affordable levels.
"We will guarantee all the villagers satisfactory telephone
service at low cost," said Wang.
Statistics show that more than 744 million Chinese lived in the
country's rural areas by the end of 2005.
China now has 830 million fixed and mobile telephone
subscribers, with 132 million Internet users.
The Ministry of Information Industry has set the goal of 2010
for providing telephone service to all administrative villages and
Internet service to all townships.
Earlier reports said China has invested 200 billion yuan in
extending telephone services to the country's 70,000 administrative
villages over the past two years, and has built 6,389 agricultural
websites by November to provide information services on agriculture
machine, trade and labor services, all of which are well received
by farmers.
(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)