The General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the General Office of the State Council recently issued and circulated a strategic plan to guide informatization development from 2006 to 2020.

 

The plan sets strategic goals for China's informatization development, which encompass popularizing the country's overall information infrastructure; nurturing independent innovations in the field of information technology; optimizing the structure of the information industry; raising the level of guaranteeing state information security; improving the informatization process in economic and societal terms; setting up a new mode for industrialization; improving the policy and systems environment for state informatization development; and enhancing the people's ability to apply information technology.

 

Concrete goals include:

 

l         To make full use of information technology to facilitate the shift of the economic growth mode from one that relies on capital and resources input, to one that focuses on sci-tech progress and labor quality improvement.

 

l         To use information technology to transform and upgrade traditional industries and develop the information service industry to assist in the strategic adjustment of the nations' economic structure. Information technology can also be applied to help reduce energy and materials consumption and strengthen the monitoring and control of environmental pollution.

 

l         To encourage more independent innovations in information technology and information industry development.

 

l         To fully utilize international and domestic markets and resources, digesting and assimilating introduced technologies, making breakthroughs in key technologies, mastering core technologies. The ultimate objective is to elevate China from a position of learning and using foreign technologies to one that creates.

 

l         To raise the levels of Internet popularization, information resources development and application and information security. Harnessing the transfer of technology to establish a world-class information infrastructure that is safe and integrates a range of networks.

 

l         To set up a scientific concept for information resources, that is, to raise the importance of information resources development to equal that of energy and materials, thereby creating the necessary conditions for the development of a knowledge-intensive industry.

 

l         To improve the public service abilities of the government, as well as its ability to disseminate concepts of an advanced socialist culture. Also, to generally increase the people's ability to use and apply information technology.

 

l         To improve the application of e-government, closely link social administration and public services, and promote the networking of public services.

 

l         To improve the informatization of the military.

 

(China.org.cn by Yuan Fang, May 11, 2006)