China issues guideline to improve gov't information sharing

BEIJING -- The State Council, China's Cabinet, has issued a guideline on government information sharing.

The guideline, approved by Premier Li Keqiang, aims to increase government credibility, while improving administrative efficiency and government services.

The guideline divides government information into three categories: unconditionally shared, conditionally shared and unshared.

Sharing should be the principle while unsharing should be the exception, said the guideline.

Information could be categorized as "unshared" only when backed by laws, regulations or national policies, according to the guideline.

All government information systems should be linked to a national data-base, so the public will have no need to submit the same information twice, it said.