The 5G industrial chain is expected to expand in China as a result of the comprehensive implementation of a new round of 5G plans.

Thanks to the country’s increasingly mature 5G technology and products, all links along the 5G industrial chain from systems and chips to terminals have reached a level of commercialization, said Wen Ku, director of the telecom department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at a recent press briefing.

The ministry will continue to improve the policy environment and support related companies to build networks to create a favorable environment for the application and development of 5G, Wen added.

To embrace the commercialization of 5G, local governments in China have issued relevant plans. On May 15, south China’s Guangdong Province initiated an action plan to accelerate the development of the 5G industry between 2019 and 2022. According to the plan, the province will build a 5G broadband city cluster in the Pearl River Delta region to form a world-class 5G industrial cluster by the end of 2022.

Major telecom carriers have published their 5G plans as well as conducted related experiments. China Mobile has launched large-scale 5G trials and application demonstrations in 17 cities. China Unicom plans to ensure uninterrupted 5G network coverage in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Xiong’an New Area, and make 5G hotspot coverage available in 33 cities. China Telecom also plans to accelerate the deployment of 5G networks in major cities, and build 20,000 5G base stations in 2019.

Large-scale construction of 5G base stations will also begin. Guangzhou will build 10,000 5G base stations in 2019, striving to take the lead in trial commercialization of 5G. Shanghai will create over 10,000 5G base stations this year and 30,000 5G base stations by 2021.

China is forecast to spend 900 billion yuan to 1.5 trillion yuan on the construction of 5G networks from 2020 to 2025, and the country’s telecom carriers are expected to generate 1.9 trillion yuan in total revenue from 5G-related business during the same period, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).

The economic output directly driven by 5G commercial deployment is estimated to reach 10.6 trillion yuan, which will directly add as much as 3.3 trillion yuan from 2020 to 2025, according to a report issued by the CAICT.