Beijing has renewed Google's licence in a move that allows the web giant to continue operating in China, the company has said.
Google had not been given a time frame on how long the decision would take
The news comes just a day after the company's chief executive Eric Schmidt told a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, that he expected an imminent decision.
"We would expect we would get the necessary licence," Mr Schmidt told executives.
"We now expect to get a renewal."
Google revealed the development on its blog and said: "We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP licence and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China."
China is the world's biggest internet market and Google's right to supply the country's users was suspended after a row over censorship.
Google boss Eric Schmidt
To get around the restrictions, Google began to redirect its Chinese users to a landing page in Hong Kong.
If the licence had been rejected outright, as some analysts wrongly predicted, it could have spelled future trouble for Google's non-search businesses in China.
Google had not been given a time frame on how long the decision would take
The news comes just a day after the company's chief executive Eric Schmidt told a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, that he expected an imminent decision.
"We would expect we would get the necessary licence," Mr Schmidt told executives.
"We now expect to get a renewal."
Google revealed the development on its blog and said: "We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP licence and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China."
China is the world's biggest internet market and Google's right to supply the country's users was suspended after a row over censorship.
Google boss Eric Schmidt
To get around the restrictions, Google began to redirect its Chinese users to a landing page in Hong Kong.
If the licence had been rejected outright, as some analysts wrongly predicted, it could have spelled future trouble for Google's non-search businesses in China.