Chinese President Xi Jinping visited a digital urban operation and governance center in Chongqing Municipality in southwest China on Tuesday.
During his visit, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, learned about the city's efforts in enhancing the modernization of city governance.
The digital urban operation and governance center is an embodiment of innovative moves that Chongqing has made to implement the deployment of digital China, give full play to its advantages of flat management as a municipality directly under the central government, and explore digital-empowered modern governance of a megacity.
The center aims to explore three-tiered urban operation and governance at the municipal, district and county, and town and sub-district levels, and gathers information on water resources, electricity, bridges, and tunnels, therefore, boosting efficiency in public service delivery.
Serving as a "city brain," the center is a core system that enables the city-wide monitoring and warning, command and dispatch, decision support, and event follow-ups. It improves urban operation and governance and makes the city smarter.
Xi visits digital urban operation, governance center in Chongqing
Xi visits digital urban operation, governance center in Chongqing
Customers in Shanghai are flooding back to brick and mortar stores to upgrade their home appliances thanks to advances in energy efficiency and the availability of subsidies offered by local government, home appliance brands and retailers.
A store in Shanghai's downtown Changning District has welcomed an average of 2,800 customers on a daily basis in recent days.
Labels on some home appliances show that customers have access to a 10 percent subsidy as long as the products they buy are energy efficient.
"With this 10-percent subsidy, I decided to make offline purchase at this store. It's cheaper after all," said one customer.
This 10 percent subsidy is offered by the Shanghai government to boost consumption.
Retailers are also offering subsidies, further driving up consumption.
"If a customer is buying a product with grade one energy label, while at the same time has an old machine for replacement, the customer can enjoy a 10 percent subsidy from the government. And our platform and the manufacturer together offer a 10 percent subsidy for trade-in goods. And we are also offering an additional seven to eight percent subsidy for sets, and a five percent subsidy for single items. So the customer can generally get a 35 to 40 percent subsidy," said Yang Xu, procurement and sales manager with a Shanghai branch of China's e-commerce giant JD.com.
Noticeably, people are willing to buy more products, especially more high-end models.
"Things are now cheaper. So I have money left for high-end products. I've spent 20,000 yuan (about 2,764 U.S. dollars) here. In the past, I would not choose a refrigerator of more than 13,000 yuan (about 1796 U.S. dollars). I would only buy one with half its price. And I was not planning to buy a TV. But now, I've decided to buy one," said one customer.
Boosting consumption is just one upside of such trade-in programs. Replacing old machines with more energy efficient models also aligns with the country's carbon reduction goals.
China has pledged to achieve peak carbon emissions by 2030, and carbon neutrality by 2060.
Home appliances trade-in programs boost consumption, protect environment
