The development of a smart society is a long-term, strategic and systematic project, and efforts should be made to build Internet power, develop the digital economy and promote integrated development, said a deputy ministry chief during a forum in Fuzhou, Fujian province on Sunday.

While delivering a speech at a subforum of the First Digital China Summit on China's intelligent and society development and outlook, Chen Zhaoxiong, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, noted building a smart society would be based on collaborative effort from everybody, and is a strategic and systematic project for the long haul.

Wang Qinmin, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said a smart society is the highest phase of a society in development after going through an agricultural society, industrial society and information society, and this is based on the development of the economy, society and informationalization.