Regulators vow to boost IT sectors

China took over the United States to become the world's largest online shopping market in 2013 with total turnover exceeding 10 trillion yuan, said the China Internet Network Information Center, a government-backed industry administrative body.

China is also releasing the second batch of pilot cities for the development of information use and smart cities by the end of this year.

'Virtual' era opening up for telecom users, firms

Mobile Internet to boost online sales

Last December, the ministry announced a long list of the first batch of pilot cities. It included Beijing, Tianjin and most of the provincial capitals.

Zhang Feng, a spokesman for the ministry, said China's telecom infrastructure has created a bottleneck for the entire IT market. Poor innovation ability by most local smartphone and smart television manufacturers is also hindering the market growth.

Earlier this year, the ministry's China Academy of Telecommunication Research indicated the nation will open its virtual telecom market to foreign capital.

Introducing more virtual carriers will encourage competition in the telecom industry and diversify services while lowering charges," said Liu Duo, vice-president of the academy.

The nation has issued a total of 19 virtual carrier licenses to local carriers. Virtual carriers provide services to mobile subscribers in China by hiring infrastructure from the country's three big telecom operators, China Telecom Corp Ltd, China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd and China Mobile Communications Corp.

In addition, industry insiders suggested China needs a better-functioning cloud computing market to serve the entire IT market. "The rapid growth of the public cloud market in recent years has seen an uneven level of service provided by different data centers," according to Liu.

"Cloud computing is a major link for mobile Internet use. The government's plans of boosting information consumption largely depends on the development of mobility," said Liu. That's why a sound cloud business is essential for the national strategy as a whole."