¡¡¡¡JINAN, Oct. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Despite the global recession in the information technology industry, China's IT output soared by 20 percent in the last decade, three times the gross domestic productgrowth rate, and is expected to exceed 1.6 trillion yuan (192.7 billion US dollars) this year.

¡¡¡¡At an international expo and forum on IT innovation which opened Friday in this capital of east China's Shandong Province, Vice-Minister of Information Technology Gou Zhongwen said IT had maintained its ranking as China's leading pillar industry.

¡¡¡¡In terms of scale, China's IT sector is among the top three in the world. China has become the world's biggest producer of mobilephones, DVD players, color TV sets, program controled switches andother electronic equipment.

¡¡¡¡The rapid development of the IT industry had created a large number of job opportunities, easing the nation's unemployment problem, while traditional industries remained sluggish, he said.

¡¡¡¡About 6.2 million Chinese worked in the industry, compared with1.5 million in 1997.

¡¡¡¡Including related fields, the number of jobs amounted to 16 million, accounting for 6.7 percent of the total urban labor force,according to statistics cited by Gou.

¡¡¡¡Meanwhile, IT exports also grew rapidly and had become China's pillar export industry. With a total volume of 38.59 billion US dollars, IT exports rose by 33.3 percent in the first half of thisyear, more than one quarter of total exports, said Gou. Enditem