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$70bn allocated for China’s ‘smart cities’
April 12, 2013, 8:32 am

[Xinhua]

The government has set up 90 smart city demonstration areas [Xinhua]

China’s ministry of housing and urban-rural development (MOHURD) has announced that banks and investors have promised a major credit line of at least $70.3 billion for China’s “smart city” projects.

After the China Development Bank announced in January that it would offer at least 80 billion yuan in credit for building smart cities over the next three years, two other commercial banks promised at least the same amount of credit for such projects, according to information released at a MOHURD seminar held on Wednesday.

Other institutional investors also signed an agreement in early April to extend another 200 billion yuan in credit for building smart cities, the ministry said.

The names of the institutions or the banks are not yet revealed.

The concept, proposed by IBM, is based on technologies such as the internet of things and cloud computing, and embraces transportation, healthcare and public security.

China has promoted the concept of smart cities, including the application of information technology in urban management and the construction of low-carbon architecture, amid the country’s renewed urbanisation drive.

The government has set up 90 smart city demonstration areas and more applications are under review, the MOHURD said.

Investment in smart city projects might exceed 1 trillion yuan ($159 billion) by 2015, smart city specialist Jiang Defeng said.

Source: Xinhua