BEIJING — China's cybersecurity market is expected to post robust growth of more than 20 percent in 2019 to over 60 billion yuan (around $8.5 billion), an official said on Dec 9.

The growth rate is higher than the international average of 8 percent, said Zhao Zhiguo, director of the cybersecurity management bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China has made significant progress in emerging fields such as industrial internet security, 5G security, blockchain and artificial intelligence, Zhao said.

Up to now, China has 23 listed security enterprises, more than 100 investment institutions and about 150 innovative enterprises in the field of cybersecurity, Zhao said.

China still lags behind developed countries in the cybersecurity industry, as reflected in the lack of influential leading enterprises, core technology and talents, Zhao said, calling for more efforts to boost the industry.