Officials from China's NDRC recently surveyed the implementation of the Smart Vehicle Innovation and Development Strategy, an ambitious plan released two years ago.

(Image credit: Baidu)

Officials from China's top economic planner were in Beijing recently to study the development of smart cars, signaling the importance the country is placing on the fast-growing sector.

China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) officials recently researched the implementation of the Smart Vehicle Innovation and Development Strategy in Beijing, according to a brief announcement posted on its website today.

Officials were briefed on the progress made by smart car companies in the areas of technology development, infrastructure construction and ecosystem building, according to the announcement.

During that research, industry players, experts exchanged discussions around smart car technology and industry trends, and made relevant policy recommendations, the announcement said.

The announcement provided no further details, though it referred to the Smart Vehicle Innovation and Development Strategy released about two years ago.

On February 24, 2020, 11 departments, including the NDRC, jointly released the strategy, which mentioned that China's goal is to basically form a smart car system by 2025.

By 2025, China's smart car technology innovation, industrial ecology, infrastructure, regulations and standards, product regulation and cybersecurity system will be basically formed, according to the strategy.

By then, intelligent vehicles with autonomous driving capabilities under certain conditions will be produced on a large scale, and highly autonomous intelligent vehicles will be applied in specific environments.

By 2025, the construction of intelligent transportation systems and smart city-related facilities will make positive progress, vehicle wireless communication networks (including LTE-V2X) will cover some areas, a new generation of vehicle wireless communication networks (5G-V2X) will start to be used in some cities and highways, and high-precision space-time reference service networks will achieve full coverage, according to the plan.

The strategy also mentioned that China will improve its policies to support the development of autonomous driving technology.

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