With a population of nearly 1.3 billion, China is not just the region s and the world s biggest marketplace, but also one of its most exciting. Back in 1984, China had just 2.8 million telephone lines barely one fixed line for every 400 people. Ten years later that figure was up to 27 million, or 2.3 main lines per hundred. China is now ahead of the regional average teledensity of 8 per cent. China is now behind only the United States in terms of absolute subscriber numbers, and at current growth rates the country is installing around two million main lines a month China will overtake the USA by the year 2005.
Mobile growth has if anything been even more spectacular.
In fact in August 2000 China overtook Japan to become the world s second largest mobile cellular marketplace, with close to 60 million cellular subscribers, and is predicted to overtake the USA for the number one position within five years. China is also investing heavily in the Internet, and plans to have an educational network connecting a thousand universities to the Internet in place by the end of this year. A liberalized regime promoted competition and created an environment in which operators offer quality and innovative telecommunications services to users. China and Hong Kong SAR, with their different approaches to telecoms deregulation, clearly show that there are many possible ways of achieving the common goal increased access to telecommunications services. Outlook for the Future Prospects for telecommunications development in the Asia-Pacific region are extremely good.