BEIJING -- China's virtual reality (VR) market is expected to continue rapid growth in the next few years, an industry expert has said.

The VR market will likely exceed 90 billion yuan (about $13.1 billion) by 2020, with compound annual growth rate of over 120 percent, said Wang Peng, deputy head of China Center for Information Industry Development with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

China's VR market expanded 164 percent year on year to reach 16 billion yuan in 2017, data showed.

"The MIIT will continue to support the research and development of core technologies of VR, and set up industry-wide standards to promote the applications of VR," Wang said.