China approves plan to digitalize government services

BEIJING, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- A State Council executive meeting on Wednesday reviewed and approved a plan to digitalize government services nationwide during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

China will accelerate the construction of a digital government to improve administrative services, according to the meeting, which was chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.

Accordingly, the country should create a national digital government network to improve regional and interagency information sharing, and ensure its digital public services cover more sectors and become more accessible, according to the meeting.

It also needs to increase the use of digital technologies during major emergency incidents and encourage the digitalization of market regulation, the meeting said.

For green development, the meeting decided to introduce a targeted re-lending program with a quota of 200 billion yuan (about 31.3 billion U.S. dollars) to support the clean and efficient use of coal.

The re-lending program involves coal mining, processing, power generation and other procedures, the meeting said, adding that policy supports such as tax incentives, special government bonds and trade-in projects will also be rolled out.