Guiyang is using a smart phone app to help utilize idle resources in rural areas. [Photo/Guiyang news network]

Guiyang – capital city of Southwest China's Guizhou province – recently released a white paper on the subject of expanding rural revitalization through the use of digital technologies.

In Guiyang's Xifeng county, which is a national digital village pilot county, an online information platform has been used since 2017 to prevent and control epidemics among animals.

The platform collects information on vaccines, immunization, epidemic prevention and the services of veterinarians. It is being made available to epidemic prevention personnel, inspectors, pet hospitals, animal breeders and laboratories.

With the platform, Xifeng is said to have significantly increased the accuracy of epidemic prevention data for animals. It also screens for risks during animal breeding and is understood to contribute to the stable and healthy development of animal husbandry in the region.

Since its launch, the platform has been upgraded 10 times and applied in more than 20 counties, 550 towns, 4,000 villages and 506,000 farmers inside and outside the province.

Xifeng has also installed and utilized 5,777 surveillance cameras to cover all 179 villages and communities. Moreover, it has established a surveillance video system, an intelligent broadcasting system and an emergency information system to guarantee the security of locals.

Elsewhere, Guizhou Shuidong Xiangshe Tourism Development Co – based in Guiyang's Kaiyang county – has developed a smart phone app to manage all the homestays in the area. In the wake of its launch in 2018, the app has encouraged more than 110 families to run homestays in previously idle houses and increased their annual incomes by an average of 12,000 yuan ($1,885).

Currently, the app has more than 5,000 registered users and it will be expanded to the city and the province to get more rural idle resources back into use.

Plans are for Guiyang to focus on the optimization and upgrading of its rural information infrastructure. The city will move to cover more rural areas with its online government affairs service, boost the roll-out of an intelligent emergency management system in rural areas and achieve targeted social governance in rural areas.