Information industry is a leading industry in the course of industrial society entering information society and a pillar industry of information society. Since 1980, some developed countries have entered or are entering advanced information society and have worked out plans and policies for strengthening their information industries one after another. In information industry, information, knowledge, and intelligence are more valuable than capital, labor force and equipment, and play a more important role in the development of social economy. It can be said that the winners of the future society are those people, organizations and countries who are most capable of collecting, processing and using information.

China is a developing country in an early stage of industrialized society. Its information industry has not yet become a leading industry and has larger disparity compared with that of the developed countries. However, since the performance of reform and open policy, China has increased its contact with the outside world rapidly with its people more and more conscious of information, thus its information industry has developed rapidly. This thesis analyzes the domestic and foreign environmental conditions for developing China's information service industry and puts forward countermeasures on how to develop the information service industry of China style in view of the status quo, problems and disparity of China's information service industry.

2. ANALYSIS ON THE STATUS QUO OF CHINA'S INFORMATION SERVICE INDUSTRY

The earliest information service organization is the scientific and technological (S & T) informa-tion system established in 1956. At present, there are more than 4,000 independent central and local information organizations with specialized personnel of about 100,000 and annual operating expen-ses of about RMB 260,000,000 yuan appropriated by the state (Liu, 1989). These organizations have a document storage totalled over 216,000,000 kinds and annual document circulation amount-ing to 22,000,000 books. According to the statistics in 1986, China's information organizations published 219 kinds of retrieval publications with an annual report of about 1,400,000 pieces -- 1,150,000 of which is foreign language and 250,000 in Chinese. The imported retrieval tapes in foreign language were of 53 kinds with accumulated document of 30,000,000 articles. As to on-line retrieval system and data bases, China has set up over 30 information retrieval systems with 71 terminals in 26 provinces and municipalities and 40 cities, and has come into contact with 11 of the biggest on-line retrieval systems in countries such as America, France, West Germany and Canada.

The self-established domestic data based with over 10,000 documents consist of more than 20 kinds with accumulated amounts of documents of 400,000 articles with about 4,000 people engaged in the analysis, design, application, service and maintenance of information retrieval systems and data bases (Zheng, 1988). As for information service, it mainly includes the following items such as document reproduction, translation, edition and report, consultation and retrieval, information research, information in kind and audio-visual service, yet information research plays and important role in Information work. Currently there are more than 2,100 people engaged in information research, taking 19% of the whole information professionals and providing annually more than 6,000 research reports of higher professional levels, which is an important contribution to China's economic construction. As for education, more and more attention is paid to the education of high and middle-ranked specialized talents and more than 50 universities and colleges have set up depart-ments for information science or library science. The Enrollment of post graduates increases annually and training bases for professional information workers have been founded. In 1991 the State Academic Degree Committee classified library and information science as the first-grade science in philosophy.

In other word, China's S & T information organizations, through over 30 years of development, have strong material base and high service level, thus becoming the leading force in China's information industry. Since the 1980's, China's consultation industry has developed rapidly and has become another important force in China's information industry. According to the statistics in 1990, there were more than 33,000 kinds of consultation services registered in China with workers amounting to 690,000 and registered capital of about RMB 8,300,000,000 yuan. The business scope of consultation ranges over the fields such as engineering consultation, enterprise manage-ment, government policy, science and technology, and trade. There are over 10,000 information service enterprises with workers of about 150,000 and annual turnover of RMB 1,000,000,000 yuan. Thus, an information market of certain scale has been set up. The rapid development of the consultation industry plays an important role in promoting the modernization of China's economy and society. Take engineering consultation, for example, from 1988 to 1991 China's International Consultation Company finished the evaluation and consultation work for 951 construction projects commissioned by the State Plan Committee with a total investment of RMB 700,000,000,000 yuan, playing an important role in optimizing the construction plans to avoid wrong decisions (Economy Daily, 1992).

In view of the developing tendency of China's information system, the following characteristics can be can be concluded:

1) China's information system has formed a certain scale in structure and had become an important industrial department in China. It can be thought that China's information service industry has entered the primary stage of industry though it is not complete in category and takes little in industrialization. In 1982 the output of China's information system took 14% to 20% of the GNP (Gross National Product) while information workers took 8.8% of the whole, a large disparity compared with the developed countries. For example, the output of American information industry in 1985 took 60% of its GNP, in 1990's estimated to be 75% and by the end of this century estimated to reach 90% (Chen, 1991).

Presently in America, 50% of its labor force participates directly in information work (Zhou, 1992).

2) Information service scope extends gradually from single S & T information service in the past to service in different kinds of social fields such as economy, commerce and trade. But problems such as backward service means, weakness in information development, and information product's lack of competitiveness still exist. Influenced by the inherent traditional means of document service, the information service workers are generally weak in business sense and development ability, which causes the divorce of information from economy, information resources not full exploited and infor-mation goods not fully developed.

3) In recent years, information organizations, deepening in reform, have strengthened their business sense and developed paid services. However, as China's information organizations depend on state financial appropriation, information service is basically free of charge, which cuts ties between information workers and production, and causes the services to lack activeness and self-development capacity with low systematic efficiency. Furthermore, as China's information system is established in accordance with the subordinate relations of state administrative systematics, it continues to have a lack of uniformed coordination and leadership, thus the development of informa-tion industry is the lack of attached policy and law protection, causing the system advantages not to be fully taken. Therefore, China's information system is at present countering the tasks of adjust-ment, re-establishment and reform of systematics.

3. COUNTERMEASURES FOR DEVELOPING INFORMATION SERVICE INDUSTRY OF CHINA STYLE

The development of information industry should coordinate with that of the whole society, economy, science and technology. According to the second step economic development strategy, by the end of this century, China's GNP will redouble, i.e. the average national income per person will reach a "comfortable" level of US $800.00 to $1000.00, from which we can fix the appropriate index for the development of China's information industry and the key fields to be developed, i.e. modern information processing and transfering technology in terms of computer, communication and data base while the development objects and detailed tasks of China's ten-year plan and "Eighth Five-Year Plan" for China's economic construction.

By the end of this century, the general strategy for the development of China's information industry is as follows: taking the modernization of information processing, adjustment and re-establishment of system as the kernel, making full use of the potentiality of information resources and systematic function and reforming the operating mechanism, thus keeping continual and stable increase of construction of information infrastructure, quality of information workers, raising information service level, hightening the information sense and quality of science, culture and information of the whole nation, setting up a crisscross on-line information system network of China style with complete subjects and departments, clear administrative levels, rational structure, scientific management, advanced service means, regular performance and high efficiency.

In order to realize the above-mentioned objects, the following measures should be taken:

1. Strengthen administrative management and work out corresponding policy and law in the favor of the development of information service.

Construction of an information system is a multi-disciplinary, multi-level, multi-link and multi-functional systematic engineering project. As closed and decentralized states exist together in China's information system, hindering and restricting the development of China's information sys-tem, hindering and restricting the development of China's information industry, it is very important to strengthen administrative management and macro-control. China is in urgent need of a wholly-new environment fit for the development of information industrialization to work out corresponding policy and law and to take scientific and effective means of management to keep the whole system in best operating condition. For example, encouraging the development of information organizations run by the local people, supporting them in specialized personnel policy and establishing a social security system.

Since the performance of reform and open policy, China has done much practical and effective work in intellectual rights and information protection. For example, China promulgated Trade Mark Law of PRC in August, 1982, Patent Law of PRC in 1984, Copyright Law of PRC in 1990 and Protection Law for Computer Software in 1991. At present, China's State Information Centre is drafting Information Law which is expected to be promulgated during the "Eighth Five-Year Plan," but Provisions for information Resource Management is to be promulgated this or next year (Lu, 1992). I think at present it is most important to work out a policy for information independence, a policy for fostering information industry and for information safety so as to perfect information laws and to promote the development of information industry.

2. Transfer the operating mechanism and follow the operating way of service and management type enterprises.

At present, the information system is in the process of superseding a period of transformation from unitary public service to service management type, from closed passive service to social-orientated initiative service and development type, from unitary public ownership to a state of multi-ple ownerships existing simultaneously with public ownership as the dominant one, thus becoming a new type o system of activeness, competitiveness and self-development competence. It is best for China's information industry to follow the way of service-management type enterprises according to the situation (Wang, 1989), which indicates the characteristics of the times. Integrating public information service into paid service, we may build an operating mechanism with material flow and information flow mutually compensating and circulating inside the information system and tightly connected with economy, thus promoting the development of China's information industry.

3. Develop data bases of China style through introduction as well as self-establishment.

Data bases are the kernel and foundation of information service industry, so we should persist in the direction for developing on-line retrieval service by merging the technologies of data base, com-puter and communication into an organ whole with data bases in leading positions, so as to coordi-nate and develop simultaneously the technologies of hardware and software and talents. In develop-ing data base industry, take the policy of integrating self-establishment into introduction but mainly depending on self-establishment. We should make great efforts to develop data bases with infor-mation resources wholly owned by China, such as Data Base of Scientific and technological Achievements in China, China Enterprise Data base, China Conference Papers Data Base, Catalog Data Base of Chinese Periodicals, and Data Base of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Herbs, which can be used in domestic and foreign information markets as first products (Zhou, 1992) .

Communication capacity in China should be taken into account in planning an automated on-line network of China's information system. At present, China's communication capacity can only meet 70% of the social requirements and by the year 2000 only 50% according to the calculation by re-triple capacity made by China Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication. CD-ROM, CD driver, retrieval software and microcomputers can be used to establish a partial system to copy data bases often used in large systems or international on-line retrieval systems through inter-copying techni-ques. The developing patterns for China's information retrieval system are CD-ROM (self esta-blished data bases, inter-copying technique and CD data bases), computer and Laser-printing.

4. Encourage the establishment of the group information industry to form a structure of various kinds of ownership and operating patterns existing side by side.

In recent years, information organizations run by local people have developed rapidly in China. According to the investigation by Hubei Province, China, in 1988 at least 1,000 people were engaged in the local information work and about 2,300 people worked for the state-run organizations (Wu,1989). Though lack of workers and with backward equipments, they follow the special developing patterns and means of merging information, technology and production and trade into an organ whole, and have set up an economic entity of high efficiency. For example, a local informa-tion organization of more than 40 workers has annual output value of over RMB 3,000,000 yuan and annual income of RMB several hundred thousand yuan. They take special patterns in informa-tion collection and transfer for example, developing some practical techniques accordance with the local situation, depending their own technicians and transferring techniques in technical markets or applying to production, which is at present difficult to do for state-run information organizations.

If the development of the information industry group is encouraged, it will promote the recon-struction of the information industry through specialization, optimize and scale the economy and promote the development of the information industry. The rise of China's information industry run by the local people indicates that two kinds of information industry run by the state and local people respectively exist side by side, which will undoubtedly promote the development of China's infor-mation industry and form a large multi-level, multi-functional group information system.

5. Exploit information markets promote the development of the information industry.

The information market is a way for exchanging information goods and facilitating information exchange and conditions for realizing industrialized information service. The development of information markets may promote that of technical and information industry markets. Technical goods circulate mainly by means of information transfer while achievements in science and techno-logy turn to production force through information circulation. Therefore, we should make full use of functions of information markets in order to populate and transfer the latest achievements in science and technology. China did nothing in this field in the past, but in recent years, information markets have begun to appear in terms of technical information markets, information conferences, informa-tion fairs, scientific and technological fairs and technological consultation industries (Fei, 1989). The Shanghai Times Information Company signed business negotiation agreements of RMB 400,000 yuan in less than one month of establishment and in 1985 the Liaoning Provincial Informa-tion Research Institute for Science and Technology gained income of RMB 260,000 yuan from paid service, indicating that the information market is of great vitality.

Currently, many professional information organizations in China begin to make various kinds of scientific and technological information products in accordance with the domestic production force. For example, the Shanghai Information Research Institute for Science and Technology, according to the requirements of China's electric fan market, looked up in patent documents of different countries in the past ten years and developed the information product "Information of the Developing Tenden-cy for Foreign Electric Fans," which includes a summary of 10,000 characters, 1,000 pieces of abstracts and 100 photos, 40 sets of which were sold out at the price of RMB 250 yuan per set (Qian, 1989) . Information organizations, by making different kinds of products of vitality, attract different types of buyers and promote the development of groups of information intermediaries and brokers.

While making development strategies for information markets, we should pay special attention to the situation that information markets in this field. Furthermore, we should persist in the open policy, strengthen the international information exchange and cooperation, exploit foreign information markets, and develop information products of China style and acceptable to international markets. For example, introducing some important commercial Chinese data bases to international information markets for exchange, promoting the prosperous development of international information industry.

Now it is a favorable time for China to develop the information industry, so it is extremely urgent to promote the development of the information industry according to the characteristic of China's economy. We are sure that China's information industry can follow a broad road in accordance with China's situation. China's information industry will develop on a large scale with the continual rise of self-development, capacity of information system, and at last with its full dependence on the system itself.
 
 

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