China to Title Unicom CEO Liu as Head of New Knowledge Bureau-Sources

By Julie Zhu, Kevin Huang and Jane Xu

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China plans to nominate the CEO of state-owned telecoms big China Unicom, Liu Liehong, as the pinnacle of its new nationwide information bureau, 4 sources stated, placing him answerable for efforts to make the nation a digital superpower.

Liu, 54, an electronics and knowledge expertise veteran who additionally serves as China Unicom’s chairman, will take the helm of the Nationwide Knowledge Bureau within the coming days, the sources instructed Reuters.

China introduced plans for the information bureau in March as a part of a sweeping authorities reshuffle. Its obligations will embody planning China’s digital economic system in addition to the sharing and improvement of the nation’s information sources, selling good cities and the alternate of data sources throughout industries.

Its formation is a part of efforts to attain President Xi Jinping’s imaginative and prescient of a “digital China”, the place information is managed alongside labour and capital as a key financial driver. The nation has additionally cracked down on information safety, rolling out new curbs in areas akin to info exports.

In February, China unveiled a plan for the nation to steer digital improvement globally by 2035.

The bureau will likely be a vice-ministerial stage regulator in an indication of its political significance, stated three sources, placing it on the identical stage as China’s Nationwide Anti-monopoly Bureau, whose standing was elevated in 2021 throughout a heavy antitrust crackdown.

Some employees of the NDRC’s Innovation and Excessive-Tech Improvement Division, which is answerable for China’s large information technique, will transfer to the brand new information bureau, stated the three sources.

China’s web regulator, the Our on-line world Administration of China (CAC), may also switch some employees to the information bureau, stated one supply.

The State Council Info Workplace, which handles media queries on behalf of the federal government, didn’t instantly reply to a faxed request for remark.

The NDRC and CAC didn’t instantly reply both.

The Hong Kong-listed arm of China Unicom stated in a response to Reuters it will make an announcement on the town’s inventory alternate if there was any change within the board or administration construction of the corporate.

“Whether or not Mr. Liu Liehong will take up any function within the Nationwide Knowledge Bureau shall be topic to the choice of the PRC authorities,” it added.

A local of Chengdu metropolis in Sichuan province, Liu has greater than three many years’ expertise within the electronics and IT business. The comparatively low-profile technocrat lower his tooth at a state-owned analysis institute as an engineer in 1990.

He later labored at state-owned China Electronics Expertise Group Company (CETC) in 2004 and rose the ranks to turn out to be its president 5 years later.

In 2018, Liu was appointed as vice head of the CAC. Two years later, he grew to become the vice minister of the Ministry of Business and Info Expertise, the place he managed 5G initiatives, in keeping with native media.

He was elevated to an elite physique of the ruling Communist Celebration, by changing into an alternate member of the celebration’s new Central Committee at its twice-a-decade congress final yr.

(Reporting by Julie Zhu, Kevin Huang and Jane Xu; Modifying by Brenda Goh and Sam Holmes)

Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.