China to promote e-commerce: Official

China to promote e-commerce: Official

BEIJING (AFP): China wants to see a greater uptake of e- commerce and will strive to create a sound environment for online transactions, state media reported Saturday, quoting Chinese trade officials.

Minister of foreign trade and economic cooperation (MOFTEC) Shi Guangsheng said he wanted to make it easier for foreign trade companies to use e-commerce in China, the China Daily said.

He predicted that more than 70 percent of Chinese foreign trade companies will be able to conduct import and export business via electronic means by 2005, according to the China Daily.

Shi said China had formulated code protocols for all Chinese enterprises engaged in foreign trade and had developed a security authentication system for the country's e-commerce infrastructure.

He said China recognized the importance of information technology and was actively promoting the healthy development of e-commerce.

Minister of Information Industry Wu Jichuan said China's information technology and telecommunications infrastructure was rapidly expanding, removing barriers to the healthy development of electronic business.

In the past five years, Wu said, China had invested 800 billion yuan (US$96.6 billion) in its telecommunications infrastructure. China now has the world's second largest telecommunications network and ranks second in terms of the number of phone users, China Daily said.

Shi and Wu were speaking at the opening ceremony of the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) high level symposium on electronic commerce and paperless trading.

Shi also called on developed APEC member economies to give more support to the developing economies and called for more dialogue and interaction between governments and enterprises in the telecommunications and information sectors.

Information technology and e-commerce are key topics slated for discussion at the upcoming APEC meeting to be held in Shanghai in October.

In a separate meeting Friday, US senior official for APEC, C. Lawrence Greenwood Jr., said information technology and e- commerce were expected to fuel the rapid development of the Asia- Pacific region, the daily said.

The United States wishes to share the experiences it has in these fields with APEC members, said Greenwood, who came to Beijing for an APEC leaders' meeting scheduled for tomorrow, China Daily said.

Greenwood said the US will help APEC members train people. Up to December 31, 265,000 Chinese websites and 8.92 million Internet-accessible computers were available to the 22.5 million Internet users in China.