China releases 5-year development plan for information, communications

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Monday issued a development plan for the information and communications industry during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) to promote high-quality development of the sector.

By 2030, a new-generation communications network with comprehensive coverage and leading performance is expected to be fully established, according to the plan, while efforts will be made to accelerate the development of a technologically advanced, secure and controllable information and communications industrial system.

Meanwhile, an agile and efficient governance system integrating technology and management is expected to be effectively established, and network and data security capabilities featuring all-domain coordination and practical application will be significantly enhanced, the plan indicates.

The industry's empowerment level and degree of globalization will be further improved, laying a solid foundation for basically achieving modernization of the information and communications sector by 2035, according to the plan.

The plan also outlines 13 key indicators, including achieving information and communications industry revenue of 4.1 trillion yuan (about 604.8 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030, cumulative investment of 3.8 trillion yuan in information infrastructure, and an average annual growth rate of 7 percent in total telecommunications business volume.

By 2030, there will be 50 5G (including 5G-A) base stations per 10,000 people, intelligent computing power will reach 9,800 EFLOPS, and the 5G user penetration rate will reach 95 percent, the ministry said.

EFLOPS, or ExaFLOPS, is a unit of computing performance, with each unit representing 1 quintillion floating-point operations per second.

The plan also proposes promoting the deep integration of satellite and terrestrial networks, calls for developing 6G base stations and 6G smartphones, and strengthening standards systems in key information and communication areas such as optical communications, computing networks and quantum communication.

China's foreign exchange reserves stood at 3.4383 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of August, up 19.5 billion dollars, or 0.57 percent, from July, according to official data released on Monday.

In August, affected by global macroeconomic data and monetary policy expectations in major economies, the U.S. dollar index declined, while global major financial asset prices showed differentiated performance, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange noted.

The combined effects of exchange rate conversion and asset price changes contributed to the increase in China's foreign exchange reserves during the month, the administration said.

China's economy has been generally stable with steady progress, demonstrating strong resilience and vitality, which provides support for keeping the scale of foreign exchange reserves basically stable, according to the administration.