Chinese telecommunication fees reduced by 53 pct in 5 years: official
28/2/2008 17:12
Government efforts to reduce telecommunication fees are paying off, and
may ease consumers' complaints that the prices charged by the monopoly giants
are too high.
Despite a background of rising inflation in 2007, the
telecommunication fees fell by 13.6 percent year-on-year, the Ministry of
Information Industry (MII) announced yesterday at the 2008 annual meeting of
telecommunication services.
The level of telecommunication fees has been
lowered by 53 percent in five years, said Jiang Yaoping, MII deputy Minister,
without disclosing further details.
"We should continue to push forward the
reform. Let the price be determined mainly through market competition, but under
government macro-control. An efficient and fair price supervision mechanism over
the industry should be established," said Jiang.
Earlier this month, the
ministry and National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) jointly announced
a price cut on mobile roaming service charges by between 54 percent and 73
percent depending on locality, after they held a public hearing on the
issue.
The number of the country's telecommunication users has reached more
than 900 million, including 366 million fixed lines and 547 million mobile
users, said Jiang.
Xinhua
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