The opening ceremony of the 2010 Global City Informatization Forum was unveiled on Sept. 25, 2010 in Shanghai. The forum was sponsored by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN Habitat, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), MOST, Ministry of Information Industry (MII), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), the Internet Society of China (ISC) and the Shanghai Municipal government. MOST Minister WAN Gang addressed the event.

In his keynote speech, Minister WAN pointed out that China’s information technology and industry have made significant progress over the past 20 years, and the information industry has already become one of China’s pillar industries. As a developing country, China is doing its best to facilitate innovations in information technology, promote the balanced development between industrialization and informatization, develop smart cities, and bridge the digital gap between urban and rural areas. All in all, there is still a long way to go for China to achieve informatization.

The meeting adopted the Declaration of 2010 Global City Informatization Forum, and launched a related web (www.globalcityinfor.org). A series of seminars were held, e.g. Seminar on Scientific Data Utilization for the Millennium Development Goals, and the Exhibition of the 30-Year Achievements from China-UN and South-South Cooperation which featured a MOST-UNEP project on environment technologies for Africa.