China fully marketizes telecom industry

China eased grasp on telecommunications market on Friday by letting local carriers to detrmine service charges on their own rather than following a government-set referential price range.

"The market should decide the prices for all telecom services," said a joint statement released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission.

"Carriers will be able to set charging mode, billing standard and price structure," it said.

The regulators also abolished the telecom charge examination and approval procedures.

"This sudden announcement marks full-marketization of China's telecom industry," said Xiang Ligang, industry expert and founder of telecom website CCTime.com.

Xiang was a long-time supporter of the reform in telecom sector. He believed by introducing more competition, the Big Three carriers will learn how to cope with the rapid changing mobile Internet era and customers are likely to get better services at lower price.

The Central government started to ease control over the industry since last year when dozens of private companies got approvals to provide telecom services by leasing the infrastructures built by the State-owned carriers.