BEIJING - China aims to more than triple the scale of its big data industry by 2020 in a bid to foster new economic drivers, according to a government plan released Tuesday.

The country's big data industry should increase its annual sales to 1 trillion yuan ($145 billion) by 2020 from an estimated 280 billion yuan in 2015, said the plan released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The government is targeting a compound annual growth rate of around 30 percent for the industry's sales in 2016-2020, according to the plan.

It also set goals to create 10 world-leading big data companies by 2020 and establish 10-15 experimental zones to speed up the industry's development.

Efforts to promote big data application and make traditional industries smarter can add new momentum to China's economic transformation, the MIIT said.

The past few years have seen rapid expansion of China's information industry, laying a solid foundation for big data development in the future, it said.

China is one of the world's biggest data producers, with over 700 million Internet users and 1.3 billion mobile phone users -- more than any other country on both measures.

The country's information industry saw sales reach 17.1 trillion yuan in 2015, double the level in 2010, according to the MIIT.