Emerging Trends in Data Policy

  • 10 Ministries Release Plan to Encourage Government Data Sharing
  • MIIT Plans to Announce the 13th FYP on Big Data 
On April 26, ten ministries including the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Education (MOE), Ministry of Public Security (MPS), Ministry of Finance (MOF), State Council Legislative Affairs Office (SCLAO) and Standardization Administration of China (SAC) jointly published the Implementation Plan on Conducting Information Benefiting Pilots to Promote Internet + Government Service. Through a two-year pilot program on inter-governmental information sharing, the aim of this policy is to prevent data isolation between government agencies, and encourage openness in regards to government data and public-private collaboration on data development.
 
The following day, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) held the 2016 Big Data Industry Summit in Beijing, with participation from hundreds of industry, academic and government representatives. The theme of this Summit revolved around the State Council's Action Guidelines on Promoting Big Data Development, which was released in September 2015 and identified Big Data as a key industry for future economic and social development. In particular, officials from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the Cybersecurity Administration of China (CAC) and Guiyang Municipality delivered keynote speeches.
 
MIIT Informatization and Software Service Department Director General Xie Shaofeng outlined the recent MIIT work with an emphasis on Big Data, including:
  • Supporting R&D for the industrialization of critical technology products
  • Promoting and deepening the application of Big Data 
  • Improving Big Data industry ecology
  • Completing the Big Data support system
Xie also noted that MIIT is leading the drafting of the Big Data 13th FYP, and we can anticipate a release in the second half of this year. 
 
CAC Informatization Development Bureau Deputy Director General Zhang Wang then stated that CAC would work with NDRC, MIIT and other relevant ministries to develop policies on promoting the establishment of public information resources, and measures on government information sharing. In addition, China is also conducting research on a series of data policies with regards to industry data trading, personal information protection, cross-border data flows, data localization, among others, so as to promote and regulate the Big Data industry. 

According to Guiyang Municipal Communist Party Secretariat Chen Gang, in the past year, China has created several public-private partnership programs to establish Big Data trading centers or platforms in cities such as Guiyang, Shanghai and Jiangsu, with trading volume over hundreds of millions RMB.