European eGovernment association e-Forum on 20 November announced the creation of an initiative to continue collaboration between the European Union and a number of Chinese cities on development of eGovernment services and strategies.

The initiative was launched at a workshop in Malmö City Hall, held to coincide with the 2009 Ministerial eGovernment conference, at which a ministerial declaration on the future of eGov was adopted.

The e-Forum initiative will be a follow-up to the EU-China IST project, and will see an ’EU-China e-Forum’ and its counterpart in Beijing, ’China-EU e-Forum’, established.

The intention will be to create a mechanism for sustaining the important initiatives created by the EU-China IST project, and to cement within a new structure the EU-China networking activities, and to ensure their continued development. The onus will be on collaboration on what will come next in the world of eGovernment, concentrating on themes within the Ministerial Declaration (and its counterpart in the Chinese Informatization Strategy), rather than simply sharing good practice. To this effect, the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Development will be utilised, with Handan - one of the Chinese cities involved - already having successfully joined the CATCH project, dealing with the environmental concerns for the large city of the future.

Representatives from the EU-China IST project’s Chinese Demonstration cities, including Madam Jing Cao from Yantai and Dr Li from Handan (both among the top 10 eGovernment cities of China) were accompanied by the Director of the original project, Chris Brown who was accompanied by his colleague from the Beijing Office, Boyong Wang.

A Committee was established to continue this work, chaired by Dr Shaun Topham, president of e-Forum, with representatives from a number of municipalities and regions that collaborate with e-Forum, such as Malmö, South Yorkshire, Tuscany and Hamburg. These locations have already either provided experts to the Chinese collaborations or hosted visits from Chinese delegations as part of the EU-China IST project.

The initial programme will build upon existing relationships and will culminate in a series of activities to be organised at the Shanghai World Trade Fair due to commence in mid-2010.

A follow-up meeting will be organised in Brussels in spring 2010, with other initiatives in the pipeline.

For more information on this initiative, contact e-Forum director Baudouin de Sonis.