A major IC chip project, costing 600 million US dollars, is being constructed in Shenzhen City in south China's Guangdong Province.

According to local sources, the project requires the installation of a production line capable of making 20,000 IC chips each month for all purposes.

The project will be funded by Shenchao Science and Technology Investment Co. Ltd. of Shenzhen City and All Best Technology Limited, accounting for 45 percent and 55 percent respectively.

Along with the fast expansion of the electronic and information industries, Shenzhen City and the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong have become major consumption markets of IC chips in China.

Shenzhen alone served as the destination for more than 5.7 billion US dollars worth of IC chips last year, most of which were imported. The IC chips were used for processing electronic and telecom products.

The city's output value of high-tech products was 106.4 billion yuan (about 12.82 billion US dollars) last year, accounting for 42. 3 percent of the city's total industrial output value.

A local official said his city would invest 80 billion yuan (

about 9.64 billion US dollars) to build a two-sq-km IC industrial park in the city during the tenth five-year-plan period (2001-2005) , in a bid to turn Shenzhen into one of China's major IC industrial production bases.