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St. Petersburg and Shanghai hash over cooperation on potential ‘smart city’ projects

The vice governor said that the "smart city" program was launched in St. Petersburg more than 10 years ago

© Piotr Kovalev/TASS

SHANGHAI, November 7. /TASS/. St. Petersburg’s delegation discussed the possibility of joint projects invovling the ‘smart city’ programs, St. Petersburg Vice Governor Nikolai Linchenko said following an official visit to China on November 4-7.

"We discussed the possibility of some joint developments in this area," the vice governor said, when speaking about the prospects for cooperation between the metropolises under the "smart city" development projects.

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He said that the "smart city" program was launched in St. Petersburg more than 10 years ago. "A developed video monitoring system is operating here already, especially streaming recognition of both vehicles and passenger flow," the lieutenant governor said, specifying that one of the directions in St. Petersburg’s development program provides for the implementation of the "smart city" concept. The issue concerns, in particular, security, applications, smart stops, and ensuring the function of essential services, housing and public utilities and the organization of traffic.

Speaking of promising areas for interaction with Shanghai, the lieutenant governor named, in particular, pharmaceuticals, the development of public space and tourism.

Views were exchanged on the possible construction of a new zoo in St. Petersburg with the Chinese, the vice governor specified. "They said that they will study the possibility, assess its potential and possibly suggest some conceptions," Nikolai Linchenko said. The possibility of creating a Russian cultural center is being studied "at the concept stage," he said. The meetings held in Shanghai also focused on China’s conceivable participation in infrastructure projects in St. Petersburg.

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