A groundbreaking ceremony for a DigiEcoCity at Gongqing in Jiangxi Province took place in May 2010. Work on another city in Danyang, Jiangsu Province is expected to start next year. When completed, each city will house around 100,000 people.

China's rapid urbanization has thrown up many environmental challenges. Sponsors of the DigiEcoCity projects hope they will demonstrate how building new, high-tech cities can offer practical solutions to many of the problems.

Finland's Minister for Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen said both China and Finland will benefit from the projects.

"This can be a great opportunity for export, but also for demonstrating and creating new products and business models for Finnish companies," said Pekkarinen.

"It may be impossible for a Finnish SME company to enter the Chinese market alone, but by joining forces with others in a city project like DigiEcoCity, the situation improves drastically."

Pekkarinen said the DigiEcoCity concept could be applied to dozens of new cities currently at the planning stage. "This will help China reach its goals of environmental protection under the new five-year plan," he said.

Unlike traditional cities, DigiEcoCities are intended to be built from scratch on green field sites. "To make such new city planning concepts really work, strong support from the Chinese government is needed,"the minister said.

Efficient use of energy and water resources, logistics, and the delivery of public services such as health and education, as well as the need to accommodate changing work-life patterns, are all incorporated in the planning stages of the new cities. A key factor is the exploitation of intelligent information networks that operate down to the level of individual buildings.

"We are looking forward to seeing the projects progress further, and finding new locations for DigiEcoCities in China in the future,"the minister said.