400 cities start smart city pilot

Urbanization and informatization, two seemingly unrelated industries, are constantly generating convergence and deep integration through "smart cities."

"As of now, more than 400 cities in China have announced the construction of smart cities to cover the eastern, central and western regions. After several years of construction, the construction of smart cities has gone from concept to landing and from trial to popularity," said the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. Planner Tang Kai was introduced at the press conference of the 9th China Smart City Conference held recently.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development focused on the construction of smart cities in urbanization, and through pilot smart cities, explored new urbanization models.

According to Cui Junzhi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, “new urbanization” is a task officially proposed by the state, and “smart city” is a new stage of urban informationization and a concrete embodiment of new urbanization.

As early as 2012, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development started a smart city pilot project and announced that two batches of 202 urban areas were piloted in smart cities.

The public statistics also show that these pilot projects involved a total of nearly 2,600 key projects with a total investment of over one trillion yuan***.

In guiding the construction of smart cities, Ni Jiangbo, deputy director of the Information Center of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said that in addition to setting up pilots for smart cities, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has also strengthened the screening and promotion of new generation information technologies, and explored solutions for system innovation and mechanism integration, and promoted The integration of the advantageous resources of the government, financial institutions, and enterprises helps the construction of smart cities in underdeveloped regions and promotes the construction of smart cities.

Tang Kai introduced that as of now, more than 400 cities across the country have announced the construction of smart cities covering the eastern, central and western regions. More than 60% of the cities above national prefecture level

"This also means that after several years of construction, the construction of smart cities has gone from concept to landing and from trial to popularization," Tang Kai introduced.

In fact, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development recently announced the launch of the third batch of pilot cities for smart cities. Industry insiders expect that smart cities will show up everywhere in 2014.

Construction difficulties

As smart cities around the world are in full swing, the construction of smart cities has also exposed many problems.

Ning Jiajun, deputy director of the National Information Center Committee of Experts, believes that in the construction of smart cities, some cities pay little attention to the actual needs of the local economic and social development and the characteristics of the city. They blindly imitate other cities, follow the trend, and regard the construction of smart cities as their achievements. Engineering and image engineering, greed for perfection.

At the same time, there is no unified evaluation standard for smart cities across the country, and planning for the construction of local smart cities has been planned.

“Because the top-level design of smart cities is the imperfect of related standards, especially the lack of operational access standards.” Liao Renbin, general manager of China Telecom’s Hunan company, said that local smart city projects are rushing to the top, the fundamentals are uneven, the departments are independent, and information is isolated. More common phenomenon. In many cities, the construction of smart cities often depends on government investment, making it difficult for the market to allocate basic resources. It is unable to stimulate social forces to participate in the construction of smart cities. The central and western regions are already short of funds, which will eventually lead to the construction of smart cities that cannot be sustained.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development also pointed out in the summary of the construction of smart city pilots in 2013. At present, there are situations in which the integrated management and top-level design of smart cities are not comprehensive and unclear. The construction of smart cities has not yet formed a master plan at the national level. There is no clear lead department and the management responsibilities are not clear. The foundations for the construction of smart cities are uneven, and there are low-level redundant construction. The serious phenomenon of pragmatism has caused serious consequences such as higher input costs and low resource utilization.

Complete standards by the end of the year

It is worth mentioning that on August 29th, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing, Ministry of Science and Technology and other eight ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Guidelines for Promoting the Healthy Development of Smart Cities," which is the first time that the country has issued a comprehensive guide to smart cities. Opinions are hailed as the top planning of smart cities.

In response to the above difficulties in the construction of smart cities, the Opinions clarified that the relevant departments of the State Council should speed up research and formulate the standards system, evaluation system, and audit supervision system for the construction of smart cities, promote risk and benefit assessment mechanisms for key projects in smart cities, and regularly announce smart cities. Construction of key tasks to complete progress.

In terms of investment, the "Opinions" pointed out that within the limits of the local government bonds approved for issuance by the State Council, the provincial people's governments should make overall plans to allocate some funds for the construction of smart cities.

Ma Hong, director of the IC Card Application Service Center of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, publicly stated that the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development is currently preparing a national standard for a smart city evaluation model and a basic evaluation standard system, which is expected to be completed within the year.

Ma Hong introduced that the smart city evaluation national standard will be the first national standard to guide and evaluate smart cities in China. It will also be the first time to scientifically regulate the smart city construction management in China and establish a unified and reasonable smart city model and construction management. The indicators provide a unified basis for assessing the degree, level, and efficiency of smart city construction.