United States-based International Data Group (IDG) plans to invest between US$40 million and US$100 million this year in China's fledgling high-technology sector, despite strained relations between Washington and Beijing.
Chairman Patrick McGovern said IDG took the view it was important for the US and China to cooperate.
China and the United States will be the two most important economies of this century . . . and foreign investment is projected to contribute about 20 per cent of China's accumulated US$15 trillion gross domestic product for the next 10 years, he said.
The group's China-based venture capital arm, IDG Technology Venture Investment, will direct about 40 per cent of the fund to the country's telecommunications technology sector and another 30 per cent to software development. Electronic instrumentation and bio-technology will each account for 10 per cent.
Mr McGovern said the country's growing market economy called for a strengthened information-technology (IT) infrastructure, and this would generate opportunities in such fields as production of mobile phones, Internet application devices and software.
China's IT sector will grow at an annualised 20 per cent in the next five years, making it the fastest growing in the world, he said.