WASHINGTON - As he witnesses the booming tourism and business exchanges between China and the United States, Tan Yijun, president of China Telecom Americas (CT Americas), is excited about the huge market potential in mobile and data communication service.

"This is the market we must work on," Tan told China Daily from the company's headquarters in Herndon, Virginia - a state where the company is the largest Chinese investor.

According to the US Department of Commerce, in the first 10 months of last year, visits from the Chinese mainland rose 36 percent annually to a record 940,000.

CT Americas, the largest international subsidiary of China Telecom, decided to explore the US retail market in 2012 after more than 10 years of development in the US.

During Spring Festival in January, CT Americas launched its branded mobile service in Chicago, Tan said.

Later, the service will be promoted in Los Angeles and New York - major destinations for Chinese visitors and where the majority of Chinese-Americans live.

The cell phones with this service will carry one SIM card with two numbers: one Chinese and one US cell number.

The new service is targeting frequent business travelers, long-term visitors and students. The international calling rate will be lower than US local operators, but slightly higher than a calling card, Tan said.

Set up in 2002, CT Americas has focused on serving multinational companies, providing leased-line services, Internet services, Internet data centers, managed services and voice wholesale service.

Relying on its resources in China, its major clients are Chinese enterprises in the US such as Bank of China and Sinopec, and US corporations with investment in China, including Microsoft and Bank of America.

"China Telecom already has more than two-thirds of those multinational clients that operate in China," Tan said. "We must explore the new market and provide new services in the future."

In addition, CT Americas will further expand its business in Central and South America, forging strategic partnerships with local operators and providing service to public users.

"Our overseas expansion will try to reach out to those non-China markets, such as the telecommunication solutions between North America and South America, based not on our resources in China, but on our overseas infrastructure," Tan said.