China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) led four other departments in issuing the government’s first action plan for the development of virtual reality on Tuesday. The plan sets a goal for China’s VR industry to exceed RMB 350 billion ($48.2 billion) and to ship over 25 million VR devices by 2026. Research firm IDC said China shipped more than 500,000 virtual reality and augmented reality devices in the first half of 2022, with ByteDance’s Pico accounting for 70% of the sales. VR is regarded as a key industry for China’s digital economy under the authorities’ 14th five-year plan. The country also plans to cultivate 100 “backbone enterprises” with strong innovation capabilities in the VR sector and to build 10 public service platforms for the industry by 2026. [MIIT, in Chinese]