With market standardization and new technology, China's digital music market will enter a period of fast growth in the coming five years.

Liu Guoxiong, chairman of the China Audio-Video Association, made this prediction at a three-day international summit on the audio-video industry held last week in Shanghai.

China's digital music market will grow to 4.1 billion yuan (512.5 million U.S. dollars) in 2006, 8.14 billion yuan (1.02 billion U.S. dollars) in 2008 and 12.7 billion yuan (1.6 billion U.S. dollars) in 2010, Liu said.

Last year, sales of digital music products amounted to 3.6 billion yuan (450 million U.S. dollars) nationwide, outperforming those of traditional music products.

The huge potential of the digital music market has aroused interest among foreign investors. The sector absorbed nearly 700 million yuan (87.5 million U.S. dollars) from overseas between October 2005 and March 2006, Liu said.

By contrast, Liu added, the traditional music market has been on the decline for the last two years. In 2004, China put on 417 million CDs on the market, down 8.6 percent.

Liu attributed the decline to the impact of new media, such as mobile phones and the Internet.

China will join two international intellectual property treaties this year under the WTO-World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): Copyright and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. The move will be conducive to the healthy development of China's digital music market, Liu said.

Source: Xinhua