Chinese City Nanjing Issues Consumer Vouchers Leveraging Blockchain 

• Toshendra Kumar Sharma
• June 23, 2020

In order to effectively reduce the impact of the deadly coronavirus, Chinese governments at all levels have been coming up with different policy measures and solutions to help enterprises overcome difficulties and for the economy to survive.

 

According to the local news, Nanjing is issuing consumer vouchers on the blockchain as a kind of crypto-driven stimulus package. Nanjing, the capital of China eastern Jiangsu province, becomes one of the first cities in China to leverage blockchain technology. These crypto driven vouchers are exchangeable for things such as food, transportation, and electronics.

 

Talking about blockchain technology, it is a shared, digitized ledger that cannot be changed once a transaction has been recorded and verified. It has numerous applications across various domains such as e-commerce, retail, remittance, supply chain management, music, and art industries, among others.

 

Nanjing to Recover Economic Recovery

 

As of June-mid, Nanjing has issued around 380 million yuan worth about $54 million USD of blockchain-driven coupons through an open lottery and directional distribution. Nanjing has recently collaborated with multiple leading brands such as Pizza Hut, Carrefour, Didi Travel to set up “Nanjing Metropolitan Area Consumption Alliance with an aim to issue 1 billion yuan of consumer voucher to help the consumption recovery in the near future.

 

Besides issuing consumer vouchers, Nanjing city also pays attention to long-term policies to assist enterprises in overcoming difficulties and retaining economic recovery after the pandemic.

 

China Continues to Rise in the Blockchain Domain

 

China continues to take crucial steps to adopt blockchain technology and implement related systems in different sectors of the economy.

Last year, Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, JD Finance, has opened a center for developing “smart cities” with its headquarters in Nanjing with blockchain technology and AI. In 2018, China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), has also extended the activities of its Digital Currency Research Lab in Nanjing.

According to Xinhua, the study, called “Blockchain in the Post-epidemic Age,” has shown that 70% of the Chinese companies surveyed before the coronavirus outbreak remain optimistic about the potential of distributed ledger technologies and pp to 20% believe that they will invest even more to mitigate the effects of the crisis.

Moreover, Chinese authorities have released a master plan for turning southern island province Hainan into a free trade port that will focus on facilitating free trade and cross-border capital flows in the whole island.

In June 2020, it was also reported that Chinese City Suzhou is implementing a pilot program based on blockchain technology to use real-time notarial tracing functions across the country. The authorities of Suzhou mentioned that this program aims to help millions of citizens access legal and government offices via the internet.

 

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