China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said it is working on policies to accelerate the commercialisation of 5G, including issuing spectrum plans and licences, China Daily reported.

Chen Zhaoxiong, vice minister of Industry and Information Technology, told the newspaper: “We will unveil a radio-frequency spectrum map and grant licences to telecom carriers in time, so as to meet the demand for 5G network construction and increasing efforts to widen applications”.

MIIT representatives previously indicated 5G licences would be allocated in the second half of 2019 at the earliest.

Wang Zhiqin, head of the IMT2020 (5G) Promotion Group, set up by the ministry to speed up 5G development in the country, said: “5G devices will be mature for commercial applications in China in 2019. We will be among the first batch of nations to issue 5G licences in the world, most likely between the second half of 2019 and the first half of 2020,” China Daily reported.

The country’s mobile operators are targeting commercial 5G rollouts by 2020. China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator, recently started large-scale 5G trials in 17 cities offering 11 types of services and applications.

Equipment vendor Huawei announced earlier this week it completed the full range of the country’s third-phase 5G R&D tests based on 3GPP’s non-standalone (NSA) 5G specifications, which were approved in December 2017.

CCS Insight forecasts China to quickly take the lead in 5G with 100 million connections in 2021 and surpass the 1 billion mark in 2025, accounting for 40 per cent of global 5G connections.