Yinchuan becomes a 'smarter' city

The Yinchuan government is shortening its administrative procedures as part of a plan to make the city "smarter".

The capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region has also started to supply consultant services for small and medium enterprises.

"Smart City provides a solution to many inevitable problems during urbanization. It was designed for the people, it will work for the people and bring benefit to the people," said Guo Baichun, vice-mayor of Yinchuan.

Shi Chaohui, the founder and CEO of Smart Pipeline Pure Water Networks, said the changes provide a better environment for companies to grow.

"They have provided a direct conversation between the enterprise and government. No more unnecessary paperwork and time-consuming application procedures," said Shi.

Foreign investment has also benefited.

"I was expecting a series of far more complicated and slower procedures before we could open up our coffee shop," said Dan Jiang, the regional director of Starbucks in China.

"But to my surprise, it only took 12 hours before we got the official government approval stamp on our business license," Dan said.

The concept of making the city smarter is rapidly emerging not only in administration, but also in healthcare and transportation.

The accomplishment from the Smart City Project was shown at the Smart City in Focus Conference held from Wednesday to Friday.

At the conference, Wang Hang, founder of Haodaifu Online, announced the success of the smart healthcare project.

"Haodaifu Online is an online portal to connect doctors and patients nationwide in order to shorten the time, reduce cost, release stress in overcrowded hospitals and make information and resources accessible for the whole country," Wang said. "So far there are 10,000 registered doctors providing remote therapy and prescriptions online, and our professional logistic service will send the medicine to patients' doorsteps."

Yinchuan is also launching free Wi-Fi coverage on all bus routes across the city to provide people with quick and easy internet connections on the go.

"Now I can read news or watch videos without worrying about my phone bill," said Xiurong Sun, a regular city commuter.

"Smart transportation has made my two hour commute on the bus bearable and even enjoyable."

Peter Sany, president of TM Forum, expressed his excitement after seeing what Yinchuan had achieved and recognized that it had created a leading smart city on a global scale.

Ren Xiaojin contributed to this story.