HAVANA, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Cuba will launch the progressive phase-out of its analogue television services as part of a transition towards digital television (DTV) with Chinese norms, a Cuban specialist said Friday.

This step-by-step process will begin in the southern part of the Isle of Youth, the second-largest Cuban island, as well as in the central part of the country, said Grisel Reyes, president of the state-run Entrepreneurial Group for IT and Communications (GEIC).

"The partial switch-off will be carried out in stages, depending on the production capacity of the national industry and on the economic and financial situation of the country," said Reyes.

GEIC experts have calculated that all of Cuban soil will be covered by digital television services by 2021 while the government has said it will take measures to avoid affecting those who still lack proper receiving devices.

Cuba started the initial testing stage of DTV in June 2013 in Havana. Now the priority is the sale of decoders allowing people to receive hybrid TVs as well as both analogue signals and digital signals.

To implement this new technology, a Chinese norm called the Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcast (DTMB) is being used and the first 57,000 decoder boxes were donated by China.

Since the beginning of the move towards DTV five years ago, Cuba has counted on the support of Chinese companies such as Haier and Huawei.

Challenges Cuban technicians must overcome are the duality of signals, the saturation of the radio spectrum, and public discontent if the signal is not of the desired quality in some regions.