The 13th Five-Year Plan of National Informatization (2016-20) was approved at a recent executive meeting of the State Council, China's Cabinet. Premier Li Keqiang said that information should be shared across departments at all levels and called for a unified, highly efficient, connected, safe and reliable national data resource system.

He made it clear that the information systems of various ministries and departments should be connected to promote information sharing among different government sectors and eliminate islands of government information.

Governments at various levels have paid great attention to the construction of information systems. However, many of these are isolated systems lacking connectivity. These islands of information are a great waste of information resources, and bring great inconvenience.

This is a significant part of streamlining administration and delegating power to the lower level, and will help establish a people-oriented strategy of "internet plus government affairs" .

To achieve the 13th Five-Year Plan of National Informatization, governments at all levels should deal with the information islands first.