SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- China's demand for networking equipment and support services will grow faster than any other market in the world this year, Riverstone (Nasdaq:RSTN - News) Vice President for Corporate Marketing and Corporate Development Andrew Feldman said today while meeting with Chinese networking industry leaders in Beijing. "China's online population grew more than 30 percent in the last six months of 2002 to 60 million subscribers and is on target to grow another 46 percent over the next 12 months," Feldman said. "The pace of advancement across such a large population is unequaled anywhere else." Feldman is in China for a weeklong series of meetings with government officials and Riverstone's customers, partners and integrators. Over the past several quarters, Riverstone has announced new customer deployments in China, including China Netcom and the Anhui provincial education network. China Netcom deployed Riverstone's RS family of routers in a citywide metropolitan network to bring advanced video, data and rich content streaming services to businesses and residents in the city of Quanzhou. Anhui, a province in southeastern China, has also deployed Riverstone routers and switches to build an educational network that will bring distance learning opportunities to its 60 million residents. "Broadband connections in China are growing at a phenomenal pace, up from about two million connections six months ago to more than 6.6 million today," Feldman said. "Over the next four years, China will spend an estimated $120 billion on network infrastructure investments, helping to sustain the pace of growth for much of this decade." Riverstone Networks Inc.