China Unicom and China Telecom were awarded nationwide FDD-LTE 4G licences by the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Friday.

The ministry said it has officially granted the licenses to the country's second and third largest telecom service providers respectively in an effort to help boost Information consumption in the country.

"Fully commercializing FDD-LTE business will help China Unicom and China Telecom build bigger 4G networks and offer better services to customers," said MIIT in a statement, adding the move will also bring down the price of national 4G services.