(Source: CGTN)

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has issued a three-year plan for cloud computing, which forecasts a strong growth for the industry as a whole.

The new plan calls for increasing the scale of China's cloud computing industry by more than 2.5 times by 2019, from 2015 levels. Some target areas are manufacturing, government affairs, and Internet-related industries.

China is one of the world's fastest growing markets for cloud computing.  The annual growth rate is 30 percent.  But its global market share remains at about 5 percent.

Major obstacles include redundant data centers and the lack of a legal framework ensuring data security. The ministry expects that two to three Chinese cloud computing companies will lead the global market within three years.