Web companies asked to support 'digital Silk Road'

Internet-based businesses and media have been asked to actively engage in the Belt and Road Initiative by building a "digital Silk Road" and helping to upgrade traditional industries within and beyond China's borders.

The country should expand e-commerce, industrial networks and Internet banking abroad, a senior official said. This would enable it to serve more than a billion Internet users, businesses and investors along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

The expansion should be undertaken in addition to implementing the country's Internet Plus plan, whereby everything will be connected to a superfast broadband network, said Ren Xianliang, vice-minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China.