Li noted during the "Tenth-Five Yea" period China will remain the rapid economic development and its quality and profit of the economic development will be dramatically enhanced. The economic growth will average 7 percent per year. China will keep carrying out positive financial policies and issue long-term bonds of 15 billion yuan to strengthen the construction of key projects and stimulate the economy to grow further.

Li added China's new labor force in urban areas and transferred labor force from farmers will hit 8 million on average per year from 2001 to 2005. It is a priority to increase their income and improve their purchasing power when expanding domestic demands.

Source: People's Daily

It's predicted during the "10th Five-year Plan" period the number of China's telephone users is going to rise at an annual average of 26 percent, of which 24 percent in the country's east, 26 percent in central China and 30 percent in the west. The number of telephone users throughout China will hit 500 million by 2005.

More and more ordinary consumers will join China's mobile phone users. Mobile phone business will expand from simple call to data exchange, intermediate and advanced multi-media trade.

During the "10th Five-year Plan", data and Internet users in China will increase at an annual growth rate of 70 percent. Internet users will be over 200 million by 2005.

Source: People's Daily

The commission noted in a report on its Web site that export growth to the US and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) was affected by the lag effect of last year's US economic downturn.

The US and Hong Kong SAR are China's first and second biggest trade partners, respectively, the report added.

Exports to Hong Kong in March increased 13.1% on year to US$4.42 billion, the report said.

Exports to Japan, China 's third largest trading partner, decreased 7.8% to US$ 4.01 billion, while exports to the European Union dropped 3.2% to US$3.41 billion, the report added.

Source: People's Daily

Ichiro Nomura, assistant director-general of FAO's Fisheries Department, is here to attend the first session of the Sub- Committee on Aquaculture under the FAO's Committee on Fisheries held from April 18 to 22.

"China will be a good teacher in aquaculture development to the whole world, especially to developing countries," he said. " Because it has a lot of know-how and good experts."

China is expected to improve the data collecting system and provide more detailed information about how to develop aquaculture, as the information it provides will have great influence on the world's aquaculture production, he said.

Aquaculture has proved to be efficient in increasing farmers' income and improving food supply while protecting water resources and natural fishery resources, Nomura said.

FAO figure shows that aquaculture has been the world's fastest growing food-producing sector with a growth rate of 11 percent annually since 1984. The top ten aquaculture producing countries are all located in Asia.

"However, in some countries the aquaculture industry has been inadequately planned and inappropriately managed," he said. "As a major supplier of aquatic products, China is in a good position to push the world's aquaculture production towards a positive and sustainable direction."

According to China's Ministry of Agriculture, last year China produced 27.26 million tons of aquatic products through breeding, which accounted for 62 percent of the total aquatic production.

The Sub-Committee on Aquaculture was founded last year in the 24th meeting of FAO's Committee on Fisheries that aims to provide a forum for consultation on aquaculture and its sustainable development.

Source: People's Daily