Nine leading Chinese telecom institutions formed a mobile multimedia technology alliance (MMTA) yesterday, making it one of the few government-backed industrial alliances that could bring breakthroughs in the development of China's booming IT sector.

Included in the MMTA alliance are not only telecom operators–China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Netcom, but also equipment providers–Huawei Technologies, ZTE Corporation, Putian Corp and Vimicro Corporation, and also a research institution–the China Academy of Telecommunication Research of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).

The MMTA alliance will boost technical innovation and development of standards and applications in the booming mobile multimedia industry, said Zhang Xinsheng, deputy director of the MII's science and technology department, host of the launching ceremony.

"The purpose of MMTA is to integrate the forces of various players in the value chain of the mobile multimedia industry to promote the innovation and standardization of networks, terminals and applications," said MMTA's president Jiang Lintao.

By lining-up the leading Chinese companies together, the move is also billed as a decisive measure taken to boost the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises in the race to apply upcoming 3G (third generation) technologies.