Speech by Dou Shuhua at World e-Parliament Conference in Valparaiso, Chile, 2016

Distinguished president, guests,

Good morning, everyone. Today, the topic of my speech is to promote NPC's work with IT.

IT revolution represented by the Internet, brought a qualitative leap in human social productivity and had profound impact on the political, economic, cultural, social, ecological fields and other fields. China is on its course of a rapid development of IT. Ever since China was connected to the international internet in 1994, the network has deeply penetrated social and economic development, as well as people's lives. By the end of December, 2015, internet users reached 688 million, among which 90.1% (620 million) of Internet users surfs the internet through mobile.

The rapid popularization and development of internet in China puts forward new demands for NPC and its standing committee in terms of exercising power in accordance with the law and provides new carrier for citizens in terms of orderly political participation.

China's NPC at all levels and their standing committees attach great importance to IT's application, innovation carrier, space expansion and give full play to IT in exercise of authority, information disclosure, service representatives, news coverage and work efficiency improvement, etc., all of which yield achievement.

First, publish the draft law for comments, listen widely to citizens' legislative suggestions.

Since 2008, all law drefts under the deliberation of NPC Standing Committee are going to be released on NPC's website and public opinions will be asked in order to further promote scientific and democratic legislation and improve its quality. In 2015, Norms on Soliciting Comments from Published Law Drafts was enacted, which clearly stated that law drafts, whether primarily deliberated or reviewed by the standing committee, should be promptly published to the public. By the end of Jun. 15th, 2016, 92 law drafts have been released to the public for comments and 2.125 million comments were gathered, many of which have been absorbed into legal provisions. For example, more than 40 thousand comments were gathered from the public when the anti- domestic violence law drafts were published.

Second, expand information disclosure and improve transparency of NPC's work.

Websites of NPC and local People's Congresses of all levels have the authority to release information of legislation, supervision, decisions, appointment and removal; to publish working plan, working documents and other relevant information on NPC's work; to publish basic personal information of representatives, comments, deliberation and processing of representative proposals; to establish legal database, representative information database, the library of people Ta Kung Pao where the public can check and download for free; to live broadcast NPC meetings and press conferences through text, image and video approaches. We also established special investigation section on the network platform to solicit public opinions and suggestions on law implementation. NPC websites expanding information disclosure becomes a new approach to ensure people's right to know and supervise by making it possible for the people to get NCP working information in a lawful, timely and comprehensive way.

Third, build a network platform to ensure good service for representatives to perform their duties according to law.

People's congresses at all levels provide representatives documents, reference materials and dynamic work information through the network platform to make sure they are informed with the situation and the policies. Through this platform, exchanges between representatives can be strengthened and proposals and comments can be submitted and processed online. Network special column platform provides online and real time channels for representatives to reach out to the public which allows communications and discussions about social and well-being hot issues between the public and representatives. It also allows representatives to consult the public opinions about their proposals. In some places, mobile app and public wechat account are opened. The public can contact NPC and representatives by following public wechat account. The wechat platform allows representatives and the public to interact online and push information.

Fourth, apply internet and new media to cover the NPC performance of duties on all dimension.

To conform to the new situation of the rapid development of internet and new media, NPC is paying more attention to the application of new media, encouraging and supporting news agencies to cover NPC meetings and activities, spread NPC information and vividly display NPC system and work by adopting new media approaches like forum, micro-blog, blog, wechat, micro-video and mobile. For example, in March this year, which was during the second session of the 12th NPC conference, Central Kitchen from China Daily delivered 218 news to global media, websites, micro-blog, wechat and mobile, for free and in real time, effectively delivering two sessions message.

Fifth, intensify IT application to improve NPC work efficiency and level.

During the National People's Congress, special network covering Two Sessions were built and multiple applicable systems were deployed, which ensured a efficient and fast start of multiple service work. The way the Standing Committee of the NPC deliberates information reflects that the system is gradually becoming more sophisticated. Committee members' deliberation statements are recorded in digital form in a comprehensive, accurate, timely and authentic fashion which provides sufficient digital data for information disclosure and sharing. NPC network comprehensive office platform are used to solve emergency issues like document management, daily office, file transfer and sharing, manuscript submitted for review, text reading and office work, meeting arrangement to promote a concerted management of internal balance.

China's People's Congresses at all levels and their Standing Committees have made great achievement in adopting IT to exercise authority, however, there is still a long way to go to meet new demands brought by rapid development of IT and new expectations of the public to participate and discuss politics. We are very much inspired by other countries' experience in meeting IT application innovation in this world electronic meeting. We will closely follow the national direction of IT application, improve people's congresses IT application infrastructure, further expand major business application, facilitate the building of national law information database, build and improve network platforms to connect the public and representatives, explore and build voting register system nationwide, promote the building of level three NPC electronic voting system, further enhance IT application and innovation, so that we can foster strong pillars to move NPC system and NPC's work forward. That is my speech, thank you.