China's primary, middle schools get full Internet coverage: report

FUZHOU -- China has achieved full Internet coverage in primary and middle schools across the country, according to a report released Sunday.

The report on the development of digital China was released by Sheng Ronghua, deputy head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, at the fourth Digital China Summit in Fuzhou, capital city of east China's Fujian Province.

In 2016, the Internet coverage in these schools was about 79.4 percent, according to the report.

Moreover, the report said that 98.35 percent of the schools have been equipped with multimedia classrooms.

Online education and e-commerce have helped the country in its fight against poverty, Sheng noted, adding that the value of retail sales in China's rural areas has grown almost tenfold from 180 billion yuan (27.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2014 to nearly 1.8 trillion yuan in 2020.

The total number of Internet users in China hit 989 million by the end of 2020, with an Internet penetration rate of 70.4 percent.

Also, a total of 718,000 5G base stations were built during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period, the report said.