According to experts attending a seminar on the application of e-governance technology this week, there is great demand for the integration of the Intranet and Internet to better connect the public and the government, said Liang Qihong, general manager of the Lighttimes Technology (Group) Co Ltd.

The seminar - co-sponsored by Liang's company, the International Business Machines Software Group and the State Research Information Technology Co Ltd - attracted hundreds of officials, experts, scholars and IT entrepreneurs, who exchanged views on the status quo, blueprint strategies, opportunities and possible pitfalls of e-governance that governments face.

Like e-commerce, which became the focus of public attention from 1998-99, the development of e-governance is increasingly attracting attention.

Different from e-commerce - which is facing lots of difficulties, with many companies going bankrupt - e-governance has been accepted more easily by the public to improve governmental reform, said Louis Liu, country manager of Lotus Software IBM Software Group.

Started in the late 1990s, e-governance was an instant success, thanks to the fast development of web technologies and the improvement of IT infrastructures, said a report by Li Guangqian, a researcher with the Development Research Centre under the State Council.

In January 1999, the information authorities in more than 40 ministries and administrations launched the "Government-on-Web" project, with the aim of helping 80 per cent of ministries and administrations establish their own websites and publicize information through the Internet by the end of 2000.

Latest statistics indicate 4,722 domain names ending in gov.cn have been established, taking 4 per cent of the total domain names; and more than 3,200 governmental websites have been set up to date.

However, much work remains to be done to develop e-governance at all levels to provide the public useful, updated and high-quality information, Li wrote in his report.

The researcher suggested a leading institute should be established under the State Council to direct the progress of e-governance to gather and deal with mountains of administrative information.

E-governance in China covers a large number of governmental departments, including those of finance, taxation, trade, legislation, judiciary and other State agencies, said Liu Chunlu, vice-president of a research institute affiliated with the Ministry of Information Industry.

Mei Jianping, an official with the Ministry of Science and Technology, shared Liu's opinion, claiming e-governance in China can unleash an enormous market in the information industry.

"Meanwhile, as a sophisticated and systematic project, the development of e-governance depends on the steps of software exploration," he said.

Plans for e-governance include the design of a user-friendly citizen interface in local languages, back-end database integration, multiple channels of communication, security transaction, cyberlaw infrastructure, participatory policy making processes and transparency in administration, experts said.

(China Daily April 13, 2002)