China is to relax restrictions on foreign ownership in seven areas of the telecoms market, including app stores, a further sign of the country’s move to liberalisation, according to Xinhua.

Foreign companies will be allowed to offer five services with no cap on their shareholding, according to Wen Ku, head of the telecom development department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The five services are app stores, store and forward, domestic multi-party communication, call centres and home internet access.

Two further services – online data and dealing analysis services – will be allowed with a foreign ownership of no more than 55 per cent.

Foreign companies applying to offer such services need to register and base their infrastructure in the Shanghai free trade zone although they can offer the services across the whole country, with the exception of home internet access which must be confined to the free trade zone.

China is committed under the WTO to open information services, store-and-forward, online data and dealing analysis services with a 50 per cent cap on foreign ownership.

The MIIT is also moving to open up service-level competition in the country’s mobile market with the award last week of 11 MVNO licences.