China's industrial economic recovery is still suffering from a weak foundation despite steady growth in the first three quarters of the year, a senior government official warned.

In the first three quarters, industrial added-value by enterprises above the designated scale increased by 9.6 percent year-on-year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

The figure was 0.3 percentage points higher than in the previous six months, with the individual figures for the respective three quarters being 9.5 percent, 9.1 percent and 10.1 percent.

Xiao Chunquan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at a news conference on Thursday that although China achieved positive progress, there are still challenges and problems, such as the inadequacy of effective demand and severe overcapacity in some sectors.

"The foundation for the industrial economy's stabilization and recovery is not solid," said Xiao.

At the beginning of this year, the ministry set up an annual target of realizing 10 percent growth in terms of industrial added-value above the designated scale. Xiao said the country is heading toward the target in full gear and is expecting a good result.

Information consumption, a field that involves e-commerce business, the Internet and cloud-computing technology, has been a highlight and played an increasingly prominent role in driving economic development, the ministry said.

For the past nine months, the country's communication sector raised its business revenue to 870.9 billion yuan ($143 billion), up 8.6 percent year-on-year. The trading volume of domestic e-commerce market reached 7.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 35 percent over the same period last year.

China, which already is the world's biggest telecom market, has seen a rapid development of its third-generation (3G) wireless network services and is going to embrace the 4G mobile era soon. The number of mobile users nationwide reached 1.21 billion, among which 368 million were 3G users.

"The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is promoting the issue of 4G licenses with all its might," Zhu Jun, deputy director of the communication development department at the ministry, said at the same news conference. But he did not reveal further information.

Previously, MIIT Minister Miao Wei said China is set to issue licenses for the 4G mobile network by the end of the year.

China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd, the nation's second-largest telecom carrier, said on Thursday its third-quarter profit gained 51 percent to 3.1 billion yuan, from 2.02 billion yuan a year earlier. The operator attributed the good performance to the country's burgeoning 3G market.

In contrast, China Mobile Ltd earlier this week said its profit fell 8.8 percent in the period, and the carrier failed to benefit from 3G development.

In the fourth quarter, MIIT said it will make more efforts to cut back on overcapacity especially in the iron and steel, electrolytic aluminum, cement, flat glass and shipbuilding industries.

"The enterprises in this year's list with overcapacity will be fully sorted by the end of this year," Xiao said.

Meanwhile, China will improve the environment for micro- and small-sized enterprises to develop. "We will deepen our efforts in taking special action to support micro- and small-sized enterprises and relieve the burdens on them," Xiao added.

By the end of September, 60 supporting documents had been formulated by relevant departments, according to MIIT.

shenjingting@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/25/2013 page13)