Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, (right) greets China's Vice-Premier Wu Bangguo at yesterday's ITU Telecoms Asia 2000 conference opening. Mr Wu had good news for senior executives of China's only two mobile-phone operators, who welcomed the government's decision not to implement the controversial 'calling party pays' (CPP) billing system until at least the end of next year. China Mobile chairman Wang Xiaochu said: 'Maintaining the current billing system in China is positive news for the company's bottom line.' Under the proposed CPP, only the caller pays. At present both the caller and receiving parties are required to pay the charge of the call. Mr Wang said he believed Beijing would consider the experience of other countries which had adopted CPP before it came up with a proposal suitable for China. 'From the experiences of some South American and European countries, adoption of CPP has benefited the mobile industry as a whole,' he said. China Unicom vice-president Li Zhengmao said the experiences of these countries had shown that after implementation of CPP, mobile traffic volume had gone up by as much as 30 per cent.
