IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

Thanks to the rapid development of the new generation of information technologies, vehicles are getting more and more intelligent in China.

The country is witnessing bourgeoning intelligent connected vehicles and the internet of vehicles industry. Urban traffic management has been improved, which brings better traveling experiences to passengers.

There are 144 million households in China using the internet; 97 million of them are using broadband. Due to the imbalance of economic and social development, there is a big gap in digital technology between eastern and western regions, and urban and rural areas. According to a survey issued by the ministry in January, by the end of last year, 20.2% of the people in urban areas are internet users, while the number of internet users in rural areas only accounts for 3.1% of the total population, creating a gap of 6.5 times. People in rural areas are facing 'information poverty'. It is urgent to narrow such a gap, said Xi Guohua.

Citizen’s Identification Numbers, issued by public security bureaux, will be used as the unique and lifetime social welfare identifier across the nation.

At the moment, social security cards are issued by provincial-level governments using different specifications and identifiers. In a highly mobile society where hundreds of millions of people move across provincial borders for employment, transfer of social security benefits between localities has been a headache for both insured citizens and the authorities. As a result, many migrant workers living in the economically advanced Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta are not enjoying the social welfare benefits they are entitled to.

The e-passport will contain an electronic chip, which stores personal information of the holder, including name, data of birth, photo, fingerprint and signature.

The Ministry says that the e-passports are compliant with standards released by ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation), ensuring security and privacy of the personal information of holders.

For a long time, China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) has made full use of its advantages to be an active participant of "new infrastructure" - infrastructure that largely serves high-tech development, such as 5G and big data—and has continuously exerted efforts in many areas such as intercity high-speed railways and data centers. As the fight against COVID-19 enters the next phase in China, CSCEC is promoting the orderly resumption of work and production at its new infrastructure projects across the country.

In China's underdeveloped countryside, the lack of popularity of the Internet, which has long been recognized as a critical base for e-governance, has presented considerable challenges to the government in delivering effective public services, said officials and experts at the 4th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance being held from Oct. 25 to 28 in Beijing.

The emphasis of good e-governance should be on creating a more equitable society by reducing the gap between the rich and the poor and eliminating persistent poverty, said the conference' s general co-chair, Peter Haddawy, also director of the International Institution for Software Technology at the United Nations University.

The Law on Electronic Signatures is expected to further regulate the use of online documents and electronic signatures in China. The draft law calls for the establishment of an online authentication system and is designed to safeguard Internet-based transactions and legalize the implementation of e-business and e-government applications.

China is building a new ‘smart’ city that is COVID-proof as well as designed to prevent any future Pandemics.

The apartment blocks in the city of Xiong’an, to be built outside Beijing, will be such that residents will be able to continue their activities even during the lockdown.

Each flat will have a large balcony that will provide outdoor access and the office areas will be large enough to maintain social distance.

A new batch of artificial intelligence (AI) innovation centers with different research priorities will be built in five cities and regions in China, according to the document released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology MIIT on Friday.

The cities and regions are Beijing, Binhai New Area of Tianjin, Hangzhou of East China's Zhejiang Province, Guangzhou of South China's Guangdong Province and Chengdu of Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The facility will be nearly the size of the 6.5-million-square-foot Pentagon, one of the world’s largest office buildings. IBM Service Business Executive Glen Yuan, in an e-mail interview, provided further detail about this enormous project.

China is working towards a unified state population database using identification numbers issued by the public security system as the unique identifiers, according to Zhou Yongkang, Secretary of the Politics & Law Committee of Chinese Communist Party Central Committee.

Politics & Law Committee is the country’s supreme body responsible for social and public security issues in the country.

The database, completed in February 2006, is a 1:50000 national basic geographic information database that covers the whole country with the largest scale and highest precision up to date.

China will further integrate government information systems and enable more information disclosure on the allocation of public resources, according to a decision made at the State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday.

The government will work to consolidate and integrate the national data sharing and exchange platform to enable connectivity across networks, data and administrative services, the meeting has decided.

China will speed up building an integrated platform for e-government services to offer easier access to the online services, according to the Ministry of Justice.

The building of the integrated platform aims to standardize government services nationwide, according to an official with the ministry.

As defined by the Ministry, government web sites include all those of government departments, People’s Congresses, People’ Consultative Conference, People’s Courts as well as People’s Procuratorates at central, provincial, prefecture, county and township levels。

According to the Ministry’s Directorate-General of Information Security, the initiative is to make it easier for the public to identify government web sites and distinguish them from non-government sites. It is also expected to help discover and curb bogus government web sites, and protect government sites “seriousness and authority”.

While the development of electronic-government initiatives is still in the early stages in China, IDC Internet research manager Nathan Midler said significant improvement is being seen in areas such as digitalising administrative processes.

Addressing a national conference on the application of information technology in Beijing, Qu Weizhi, executive vice-director of Chinese Government's information technology taskforce, said promoting the development and use of information technology is essential for China's sustainable social and economic development.

China has decided to put more administrative services online to improve transparency and efficiency in the government's work, the State Council announced Wednesday.

The government will continue pushing its "Internet Plus" initiative to improve administrative services, cut red tape and reduce costs, according a statement by the State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

Speeding up the construction of informatization and building a sound information security system is of significant importance to economic restructuring and national security, according to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao.

China tops public sector enterprise networking equipment spending in Asia Pacific, says Springboard Research, an IT market research and advisory firm.

Its latest research report titled "An Opportunity Emerging: Networking in the Public Sector," which was released recently, stated that the greater China region (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) contributed the largest share at 42.7 per cent to enterprise networking spending by the public sector across Asia Pacific (excluding Japan).