China will make sustained efforts to safeguard information and network security and crack down on cyber crimes.

"China has included information security as a crucial point in the country's blueprint for the development of its information industry between 2006 and 2020," said Yang Xueshan, vice-director of the Information Technology Office of the State Council on Thursday.

"To safeguard information safety a complicated systems engineering project," he told an international anti-virus conference that opened Thursday in the north China municipality Tianjin. "First of all, we need to set up a sound and effective mechanism to fight and prevent computer virus and enhance information and network security."

He said international cooperation is crucial in this regard. "The cyber space is transnational, so is the fight against computer virus, which calls for concerted efforts from worldwide specialists, governments, businesses and the general public, too."

China's public security authorities have also vowed an intensified crackdown on Internet frauds, thefts and other cyber crimes that endanger network security.

"China will take an active part in international exchanges and cooperation to fight Internet-related crimes," said Gu Jianguo, an official in charge of network and information security in China.

A national survey conducted by China's public security authorities this year shows the country has improved its network and information security this year, with infection rate of computer virus slightly down from the previous years, Gu told the gathering in Tianjin.

Network security is increasingly important in China, which had 103 million Internet users as of June 30, 2005, ranking second in the world after the United States.

In 2004, the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center (CNCERT), a key body responsible for collecting domestic Internet-related safety incidents, received 64,686 incident reports, nearly five times that of the previous year.

In the meantime, CNCERT received 223 reports of mimicking, in sharp contrast to only one case in 2002 and 2003. The victims were mainly financial and electronic websites.

The two-day conference in Tianjin is the eighth annual gathering of the Anti-Virus Asia Researchers (AVAR) and carries the theme "wired to wireless, hacker to cyber-criminal". It has drawn industry insiders from China, the United States, Russia, France, Japan, Iceland and the Republic of Korea.

AVAR is an independent and non-profit-making organization oriented in the Asia Pacific region. It was founded in June 1998 with the mission to prevent the spread of and damages by computer virus, and to develop cooperative relationship among anti-virus researchers. Most its members are developers of anti-virus products as well as organizations and individuals researchers on virus prevention.

(Xinhua News Agency November 17, 2005)