China's electronic information industry maintains fast growth in 2016

BEIJING - China's electronic information industry continued to grow quickly last year, with its value-added output expanding 10 percent year on year, the latest official data showed.

The growth was 0.5 percentage points slower than that in 2015, but outpaced overall industrial output growth by 4 percentage points, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The statistics took into account major electronic information companies, or those with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan ($3 million).

The industry's rapid development was boosted by internet-based innovations and government efforts to improve Internet infrastructure.

China has over 700 million internet users and 1.3 billion mobile phone users - more than any country on both measures.

In 2016, China produced 2.1 billion mobile phones, up 13.6 percent year on year, the MIIT data showed.

Smartphone output reached 1.5 billion last year, accounting for nearly 75 percent of total cellphone production and rising 9.9 percent from 2015.

China plans to channel 1.2 trillion yuan into information infrastructure projects, mainly broadband and mobile network improvement, from 2016 to 2018.