China Mobile, Huawei Technologies, China Netcom, ZTE and China Central Television (CCTV) along with other more than 300 mainland companies from the information and communications technology (ICT) sector are accelerating their investment plans in the U.K. in an effort to further reach other markets in Europe, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

Tony Collingridge, head of the Asia-Pacific team at UK Trade & Investment, the British government's international business development and promotion group, said Chinese ICT investments has witnessed a rapid growth from a negligible number in the late 1990s to about 59 projects in the 2007-08 financial year.

Henry Ge, China Mobile's chief representative for European and Africa business, said the company decided to choose the UK as an investment destination because of its sound investment environment, abundant resources of talented people, the benefit of English-speaking business and easy access to capital markets.

China's leading telecom and networking equipment provider Huawei was shortlisted in April 2005 as one of the preferred equipment suppliers for telecommunications network operator BT's 21st Century Network program,  a five-year infrastructure build-out that will cost about £10 billion (HK$139.98 billion). The company has been paid off from the deal.

The UK and China governments have set the target of boost the bilateral trade in goods and services to US$60 billion by 2010.

Source:China Knowledge