Beibu Gulf to Make Its Presence Known via “Internet Plus”

written by Liang Yanhua / translated by Gao Qianqian, Ma Jinyu

Beibu Gulf to Make Its Presence Known via “Internet Plus”

written by Liang Yanhua / translated by Gao Qianqian, Ma Jinyu

In the past, people got to know the places they had never visited through limited ways: newspapers, TV, and others’ experience, or they had to travel there by themselves. Nowadays, things have been totally different. The emergence and widespread use of a media have completely changed people’s way of life, including travel, shopping, investment and education etc. It is richer (with massive information), more timely (it takes only several seconds for an event to occur and spread out), closer to life (one can not only see it, but participate in it), and more convenient (with a click of the mouse, one gets to know the world without walking outside). It has penetrated into every aspect of people’s life, and affected the trend of economic development. What we are talking about is the internet.

Beibu Gulf on the Internet: Still Vague and Has Yet to be Sketched

The economic development and openness of a region can be reflected in its territory on the internet, where the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone (BGEZ) is only a concept for the outside world. This is also the epitome of Guangxi’s current situation.

In terms of accommodation, on the Taobao travel page, 4,900 hotels are available in Lijiang, Yunnan; 3,700 hotels in Guilin, Guangxi; 1,700 hotels in Beihai; 300 hotels in Weizhou Island, zero in Daxin, 3 in Detian, and 1 in Minshitianyuan. Whoever has been to Daxin and Detian knows that these two places are by no means short of starred hotels or guesthouses, but this information has not been made known through the internet.

Transportation and accommodation are the first things one has to know when he/she goes somewhere for travel or investment. This May, for example, some friends from Beijing planned to have a self-drive trip to the Detian Waterfall, but had to delay the plan for they could not obtain the specific itinerary for the trip through the internet or telephone consultation.

This is the embodiment of Beibu Gulf’s virtual image. Although road network of cities and counties in the Beibu Gulf has been increasingly improved, theoutside world has little information about it. How could we break the boundary and realize unimpeded information transmission? The only solution is “Internet Plus Beibu Gulf”.

How Could the “Internet Plus Beibu Gulf” be Realized?

Undoubtedly, the Chinese government is aware of the important position of internet in national economy. The “Internet Plus” was first put forward by Premier Li Keqiang in the 2015 Government’s Work Report. This move would bring profound influence to China’s society, economy, culture, environment, resources and infrastructure etc., and lead the development of the “New Normal”. In recent years, with the accelerated development of cable broadband network and mobile internet, new technologies like cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things have integrated into traditional industries, as well as people’s livelihood such as travel, e-commerce, financial planning etc. As the traditional PC internet era is upgraded to the mobile internet era, the “Internet Plus”, by combining with information technology and industrialization, will gradually become the most important engine for economic development in the future.

“Broadband Guangxi” has laid a sound foundation.Nowadays, the BGEZ has formed an integrated urbanrural communication network pattern featuring multiple communication means: cable has covered all the villages in the BGEZ; telephone has covered all administrative villages and natural villages with electricity supply and more than 20 households; broadband has covered over 97% of the villages; and wireless network has covered over 99% of the administrative villages. It has become capable of carrying high-capacity and high bandwidth requirement data, laying a foundation for“Internet Plus Beibu Gulf”.

On the basis of “priority to the easy” and “priority to the external”, information resources integration must be done in batches among cities in the Beibu Gulf.

Transportation, travel, hotel, meteorology, goods, investment and business belong to the external domain, which display the image of a region, while cross-sector and cross-city connectivity in employment, social security, education, medical treatment, and credit is part of internal administration, which is more difficult to realize, and is better enriched and upgraded after the external contents are exhibited. When all public departments in the Beibu Gulf have realized information interconnection, it would immeasurably facilitate the flow of social elements. If advanced coordinately, they would undoubtedly increase the popularity of the BGEZ and vitalize its economy.

To forge a public transport operation system among cities of BGEZ.Rich and clear traffic information is the most basic element to realize the virtual and real combination. The traffic convenience will definitely increase the demands of social elements, business and tourism. Therefore, apart from the facilitation of road network and traffic carriers, the convenience of physical traffic transportation, including the means of payment, should be enhanced as well. For example, to make the citizen cards in BGEZ interconnected and unified, and integrate booking, ticketing and internetenabled businesses.

To integrate all public traffic connection information within the BGEZ, including water, air and land transportation. Social entities like private transportation enterprise should join the integration, making it become the most extensive and rich traffic information network.

To advance tri-networks integration (namely, telecommunications networks, cable TV networks and the internet) in an all-round manner and broaden the scope of internet baseband.One should continue to speed up the construction of fiber optic network, vigorously promote BGEZ’s logistics industry, develop e-commerce, take the internet as the carrier to cultivate agricultural products, create an emerging consumption environment that featured goods are available both online and offline. The implementation of "Internet Plus Beibu Gulf" will promote the integration of BGEZ’s mobile internet, cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things and modern manufacturing industries, boost the sound development of e-commerce, industrial internet and internet finance and extend BGEZ’s economic entities to the whole China and even the international market.

Form of investment: to adopt the cooperation pattern conducted by government and social capital and implement the "Internet Plus Beibu Gulf".It will take a long time and require the involvement from all walks of life to carry out the "Internet Plus Beibu Gulf". The job can not be accomplished solely by government funds or social capital. The cooperation pattern conducted by government and social capital is a new and feasible model, which can provide public services, attract social capital as well as pool social forces to increase public products and service supply. To realize the "Internet Plus Beibu Gulf", the allocation of project risk should be in accordance with the accrual principle of reciprocity. The terms of contract should be well drafted based on the principle of incentive compatibility. Collaborative mechanism among investment subsidies and price should be established as well, so as to create conditions for social capital to obtain a reasonable return. In this way, social capital will pay more attention to their own economic interest demands, which will be in harmony with the government policies, goals and social goals. When realizing economic values, enterprises should also fulfill their social responsibility and provide services with good quality in strict accordance with the agreed information platform.

“Internet Plus Beibu Gulf" will be activated by the participation of the public, thus to radiate long-lasting and exuberant vitality.Not any social force can accomplish the “Internet Plus Beibu Gulf" alone as it requires a tremendous amount of work. Hence, we should not only help it to get on a horse, but also escort it a distance. The rapid development of internet depends on the netizens’ participation, and the enrichment of “Internet Plus Beibu Gulf" framework can not do without the mass participation. The information of public sector can be collected through administrative instructions and civilian information can be gathered via platform builders. However, there is still a very important content which requires the mass participation. After investigation, we found that the habit of netizens in BGEZ still remains in the level of “acquirement”. They obtain information, chat with each other, watch videos and listen to the music etc. Compared to central and eastern China, the number of internet “givers” in the BGEZ is small. For instance, a very limited portion of netizens or small enterprises in BGEZ uses internet for individual commodity information release and content promotion. In contrast, internet is in full swing in some areas with highly developed economy like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang. The government needs to cultivate their citizens and farmers to use internet to promote their featured products, resource capability and service information. For example, Guilin (especially in Yangshuo), which is located in China’s Guangxi province, is the most developed area for networking its tourist information. Mule town, lying in Guangxi’s Guiping city, well develops its commodity economy with the help of internet.

With the participation of all and useful information input by the smallest unit of society, “Internet Plus Beibu Gulf" will truly come alive and radiate long-lasting and exuberant vitality. We sincerely expect this day come early.