Shanghai IT sector grows by 30 percent against global slowdown (01/17/02)

2004-06-12 15:17

The robust information technology (IT) sector in Shanghai, a leading industrial and business center in China, grew by 30 percent in 2001 on a yearly basis, local officials said on Wednesday.

The contribution of the sector to the city's gross domestic product rose to 8.2 percent from 7.4 percent in the previous year, said a spokesman for the Information Technology Office of the municipal government.

In 2001, IT product manufacturers in the city generated a total output value of more than 100 billion yuan (US$12.1 billion) for the first time in history. This was an increase of 25. 6 percent from the previous year, when a surge of 42.6 percent was obtained.

According to the officials, about one third of the city's industrial investment went to the IT sector, mainly for the production of telecommunications equipment, computers, digital audio and video equipment, electronics parts and chips.

In 2001, the total revenue of information service and software industries amounted to 30 billion yuan (US$3.61 billion), an year-on-year growth of 27 percent. The number of mobile phone subscribers jumped 71 percent to 6.2 million, while over 1.4 million local families had access to the Internet via the cable TV network.

With the wide application of information technology, 55 government departments now issue information about government services via the Internet, and intelligent cards are widely used in public transport sectors.