The development of new towns and smart cities in Korea has now been presented in Beijing. Information technology, spatial data, energy, smart homes and safety technologies that are used in the development of smart cities were introduced and demonstrated, as well.

A delegation consisting of the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH), city governments, research institutes and private companies attended the 2016 China Smarter Cities International Expo held in Beijing from July 29 to 31, announced the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Rapid urbanization and the subsequent increase in urban population has triggered a broad range of urban challenges and developmental gaps between regions across mainland China. The Beijing government, thus, has realized that "smart city development" has become one solution that could tackle such urban issues, and has been carrying out related projects to develop 500 smart cities across the nation through to 2020.





Along with Korea Land & Housing, which has many experiences in developing new towns and smart cities, the city governments of Daegu and Sejong, which have both adopted smart city services, and private companies that own smart city-related technologies, participated in the expo.

The Daegu and Sejong city governments shared the current status of their smart city services, such as the smart healthcare center smart transport and safety services in Daegu, and the entire process of developing a smart city in Sejong. Private companies demonstrated their "smart" technologies: SK Telecom presented an intelligent emergency call system, and advanced IT expert ESE introduced its smart city integrated management platform. COMMAX, specialized in smart homes, presented some of its smart home Internet of Things (IoT) technology, and ICON showed off its smart security solutions.





During the three-day expo, special sessions for Korea were organized, and a Korea-China joint seminar was held that covered urban development and smart cities in Korea and Korea-China research partnerships concerning smart cities. Memorandums of understanding were signed between Korea Land & Housing and the China Centre for Urban Development (CCUD), and between the Korea Ubiquitous City Association and the China Smart Cities Industry Alliance.

About 300 companies joined the three-day expo, hosted by the National Development and Reform Commission, and organized by the CCUD, and about 100,000 people visited the event.

By Chang Iou-chung
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photos: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport
icchang@korea.kr