China's Ministry of Information Industry and National Development and Reform Commission said that from March 1, 2008, China would implement the new standard for mobile phone roaming services.

According to the new standard which simplifies the structure of the roaming fees by combining the domestic roaming fee and the domestic long-distance communications fee, the upper limit fee of the mobile phone roaming service would be reduced to CNY0.6 per minute for making an outgoing call and CNY0.4 per minute for answering an incoming call.

Under the existing measure, telecom operators need to lower their fee standard if their communications fee for domestic roaming service is higher than the new standard, but they must not mark up the price if their current price is cheaper than the new standard.

MII and NDRC said that they would give some time for the telecom operators to transform their charging system, but they must implement the new standard no later than May 1, 2008.