Businesses fuel digital development in Fujian

The fact that accessing government services is as easy as shopping online is an indication of the rapid digital development taking place in Fuzhou, Fujian province.

The first Digital China Summit, focusing on China's digital construction, was held in Fuzhou earlier this week, providing an opportunity for Fujian to demonstrate its achievements in fields including e-government, digital economy and smart city construction.

Fujian's digital economy exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($158 billion) in 2017, ranking seventh in China, and local businesses have played a big role in the province's remarkable digitalization process.

"A good network is a basic requirement for digitalization," said Gao Jinxing, general manager of the Fujian branch of State-run China Telecom Corp Ltd during a sub-forum of the summit.

Gao said the company has extended optical and narrowband internet of things networks to the whole province, and speeded up the average broadband connection to 85 megabytes per second, 25 Mbps faster than the country's average.

Public service is another field many local businesses are aiming for. Fujian Electronics & Information (Group) Co Ltd has already been successful in digitalizing government services. By building shared data systems based on cloud computing, the company's e-government platform cooperates with more than 150 public departments in Fujian, improving government work efficiency and making it more convenient for residents and businesses to handle affairs with the government.

Meiya Pico, a cybersecurity and big data firm headquartered in Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian, is constructing a public security management system for the city. The system has made city management and decision-making more efficient by collecting data from local authorities and administrative units, and can also detect potential public security risks and send alert messages.

Not only established businesses, but also some new and growing enterprises are seizing the market. Onlyou.com, established in 2013 to process financial data and digital tax reports online for small businesses, has become one of the largest automatic financial and taxation data process service providers in the world.