'Smart city' initiatives to boost economy

BEIJING - "Smart city" initiatives in China are expected to attract huge money and create jobs, thus contributing to the country's economic growth, analysts said Tuesday.

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

He said smart city construction takes advantage of advanced information technologies, especially the "Internet of Things," to provide fast and effective information services in areas such as traffic management, health care and environmental protection, among others.

Wu Lun, professor at Peking University and deputy dean of the university's Institute of Digital China, said the figure of 1 trillion yuan is "rational" if it includes infrastructure, data processing facilities and service platforms.

Jiang said over 300 cities nationwide have already begun to cooperate with China's telecommunication service providers to "get smart," with hundreds more likely to do so in the near future.

At a time when China is experiencing slower economic growth, building smart cities will be a huge driving force for not only the information industry but also related industries, said business owner Yang Bingzhi, who is also an adjunct professor at Zhejiang University.

"The huge investment will in the long run pay off," Yang said.

However, he said, China's smart city projects still lag behind developed economies, due to a lack of key technologies, high-end products and mature management.

Earlier this month, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that China's GDP grew 7.6 percent year on year in the second quarter, the lowest growth rate in three years.