Ningbo, located on east coast of China, is a deputy-provincial city with a total area of 9,365 sq. km. and a population of 5.43 million. With reform and opening-up policies, the city has made great progress in its economy.

        In 2002, its GDP totaled 150 billion yuan (US dollar …), and its per capita GDP hit $3331. Meanwhile, Ningbo boasts one of the best deep-water transshipment ports, Beilun Port in Mainland China. Ningbo is now growing into an economic center in the southern flank of Yantze River Delta.

        In the new century, Ningbo is facing a new round of economic structural adjustment and the Municipal Government has made a strategic decision to speed up the development of the IT industry and IT application in the city. Hence, Ningbo has witnessed a rapid development of IT industry and IT application in recent years.

IT Infrastructure

I. A good IT Infrastructure to Support IT Application in the City
        A broad-band MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) has been formed with 7 ICPs like China Telecom, China Unicom, etc. in the city. In 2004, network exit bandwidth reached 6.9G. There are 700,000 registered network subscribers, 410,000 of which are broadband subscribers. Meanwhile, Ningbo Network Exchange Center has been in operation to propel local network interconnection and interworking.

IT Industry

II. IT Industry to be a New Economic Increase Point of National Economy
        Information industry has been developing fast and has become one of the nation's pillar industries. In 2004, increase value of Ningbo IT industry reached 21.7 billion yuan with a 16% growth over last year. Among which, the production value of electronic information products manufacturing industry accounts for 53.8 billion and software industry 1.9 billion, with an increase of 17% and 42% over the same period last year respectively.

IT Application
        
III. Wide Range Application of IT in all kinds of Social Fields

        E-government aiming at a transparent and efficient government. More than 85% government departments in the city has established their own websites, 70% of which has got LAN(local area network). A special LAN has connected some 120 departments or bureaus with the general office of Municipal Government. Ningbo Online Administration Service Center has been under construction. It will deliver one-stop services on demand and public will have access to more than 400 online services, ranging from online business registration to taxation.

        Rapid E-commerce Development. Being a national e-commerce pilot city, e-commerce is widely used in foreign trade, logistics, main industries and so on. More than 80% of 2,000 foreign trade enterprises conduct business on line. Some professional market such as China Plastic Network got an annual online business turnover of 10 billion Yuan. Furthermore, e-commerce played an extremely important role during the period of SARS. Take online International Consumer Goods Fair in Ningbo as an example, during one month period, the fair website got users reach of 210,000 and page views of 1,300,000, attracting 2,556 online suppliers and 12,000 pieces of demand information from 27 countries and regions.

IT Application in Enterprises. Entitled national first batch CAD application pilot city, Ningbo city boasts 13 national CAD application pilot enterprises and 4 CIMS application pilot enterprises. There are many successful cases of large-scale enterprises which gained great achievements with IT application. As is known, Younger Group, one of the largest garment enterprises in China, has quickly seen a sharp cost decrease and a high revenue increase with its comprehensive IT application in finance management, sales management and warehouse management as well. And Cluster economy is on start-up to promote information resources sharing among the small and medium-sized enterprises.

E-society
        Penetration of IT in Various Social Domains. Ningbo “81890” e-community platform, an outstanding e-community practice, has enjoyed great fame throughout China. What is most important and remarkable in its successful operation is the interactivity among the government, business and public in its operation. There are also other application such as financial realtime clearing system, electronic tax declaration system, etc.