Policymakers have chosen five cities for a pilot program in cloud computing technology, an area the nation aims to develop during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), said senior officials at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Strategic emerging industries are a crucial part of the 12th plan, and new areas of information technology such as cloud computing will contribute heavily to economic and social development, NDRC Vice-Minister Zhang Xiaoqiang said at the China Hi-Tech Fair.

"We should make efforts to develop it and make some breakthroughs," Zhang said at the event, which runs from Wednesday to next Monday.

The NDRC, working with other national-level departments, drafted a strategic emerging industry development plan that will be sent to the State Council for approval, the NDRC said.

Cloud computing is online computing that uses the Internet, instead of hard drives, for data storage.

The five pilot cities are Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen in Guangdong province, Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and Wuxi in Jiangsu province.

According to the NDRC, the main participants in Beijing, where work will focus on cloud search and storage, are Baidu Inc, Lenovo Group Ltd and China Mobile Ltd.

In Shanghai, major participants are Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd (cloud computing for the cultural sector) and China UnionPay (electronic payments and commerce).

In Hangzhou, the NDRC has chosen Alibaba Group Holding Ltd to develop technology for small and micro-sized enterprises.

Qi Chengyuan, head of the high-tech industry department at the NDRC, said that China should avoid "blind construction" in the cloud computing sector.

"We should establish good examples, then fully implement their applications," Qi said.

Application achievements in cloud computing have been prominently displayed at the Hi-Tech Fair.

Zhang Jing of Alibaba Cloud Computing said at the fair that the company's technology had helped small and micro-sized enterprises cut their IT budgets by about one-third, and more than 3,000 clients use the company's technology.

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