(Yicai Global) Dec. 11 -- The sales revenue of integrated circuits in China topped CNY540 billion (USD78.3 billion) last year, 30 percent of which came from foreign-funded firms. Eight out of the 10 12-inch production lines that have been built are foreign owned or backed. 

Luo Wen, deputy minister of China's industry and information technology ministry, made these remarks at the opening ceremony of the first Global IC Entrepreneur Summit & 16th China International Semiconductor Expo in Shanghai today. The IC sector is highly globalized and calls for cooperative development, Luo added, China Securities Journal reported.

China's IC industry is also integrated into the global ecosystem, Luo noted. The country is the world's largest electronics producer. Driven by the demand for overall systems, China has become the biggest and fastest-growing IC market with a compound annual growth rate of 16.4 percent since 2001 and CNY1.4 trillion in market value.

China's IC sector depends highly on foreign markets with increasing import values, though its own industry scale is rapidly expanding, People's Posts and Telecommunications News cited Yu Xiekang, vice chairman of the China Semiconductor Industry Association, as saying. 

IC imports in China last year rose almost 15 percent to a record high of USD260 billion, accounting for 69 percent of the world's total, while its exports rose 9.8 percent to USD67 billion.

Editor: Ben Armour