CELL phone users need pay only five yuan (65 US cents) a month from July 1 to keep their numbers, instead of the current 20 yuan a month, China's information industry watchdog has said on its Website.

Five yuan is an upper limit, and local telecom companies can further lower the fee after reporting to local communication regulator and pricing department, the Ministry of Information Industry said yesterday.

China's mobile operators charge post-paid subscribers for keeping their phone numbers, even though they don't make any phone calls or send short messages from that number.

Fees of other services can't be levied on the numbers until they begin to use their phones, it said.

The ministry has urged mobile carriers to charge users for only outgoing calls and cut roaming fees.

More than 467 million Chinese mobile phone users will be able to enjoy free incoming calls within two years, the ministry said in an earlier report.