Xinhua News Agency and China Telecom, one of China's three leading mobile telecom carriers, on Saturday launched a Xinhua TV News channel through the high-speed third-generation network (3G) in Shanghai.

Subscribers in Shanghai can get multimedia news services of Xinhua with their "e surfing" cell phones provided by China Telecom, said Zhang Weihua, general manager of China Telecom Shanghai Branch.

Xinhua will provide China Telecom Shanghai Branch with exclusive news about the Shanghai Expo, analysis reports and various news items, while the latter will offer telecommunications services, according to the deal.

Lu Wei, vice president of Xinhua, attended the ceremony to launch the service. Xinhua started its video news service on March1 this year.

High-quality information services are needed to build Shanghai into an international financial center as well as an international shipping center, said Zhang.

State-owned China Telecom boasted 214 million fixed-line telephone subscribers, 35 million mobile phone subscribers and 47 million broadband customers at the end of 2008.

<i>Source:Xinhua</i>