Chen Dawei, deputy director of the Information Technology Office of the State Council, said, "The e-government websites in most provinces have helped the local governments more easily reach local residents and therefore make the administrative work more transparent and efficient." According to the office, by the end of July, the construction of the network of e-government in most provinces had been completed and that many local governments are optimizing their respective websites.
Chen added that three major cities, namely Shanghai, Xiamen and Guangzhou, are leading the way in building e-government portals and related websites.
Qiao Zhigang, vice-director of the Shanghai Informatization Commission, said, "We have finished constructing the overall framework linking the municipal government website with those of district governments."
Qiao added that the commission is working on the projects in order to enable Shanghai residents to access more public information via only one website, after the computer engineers synthesized the resources in different websites of various governmental agencies.
To date, the Shanghai government website www.shanghai.gov.cn has been linked to 240 websites of district governments, different governmental agencies and societies.
Any individual resident in the city can now download 2,400 kinds of government forms from the Internet.
By filling in these forms, residents can process 703 different kinds of government-related business , which previously could only be handled by visiting different governmental agencies in person.
The commission officials revealed that a pilot project in Huangpu District, that combines information from six different governmental agencies, would bring more convenience to those applying for subsidies granted to those whose income is way below the average.
The applicant now needs only to fill in nine forms online rather than the previous 19 forms.
The online process has also reduced the application period to three days from the previous 15, when the applicant often had to scurry between many different governmental agencies.
Qiao added that apart from individual Internet surfers, Shanghai's e-government projects also facilitate companies.
Qiao said, "The pilot project in Songjiang District has collected information issued by 23 governmental departments and publishes the information on a platform from which all the locally registered firms in the district can access it."
Meanwhile, different departments in the district can access the general information about the local companies.
The e-government project in the district also substantially shortens the time needed to set up a new company there, from the previous 30 days to the current 10 days.
Autor: Zou Huilin
Quelle: China Daily, 19.08.2005
