A modern farm in Deqing county, Huzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/hz66.com]

Huzhou's Deqing county has been ranked first among the county-level areas in Zhejiang in a provincial assessment of digital rural development in 2023.

The evaluation considered four prefecture-level cities and 32 counties (including county-level cities and districts) in the province, focusing on the development of the digital economy, as well as the digitalization of rural governance and rural life.

Deqing has made substantial progress in propelling the digital transformation of its agricultural sector. The county has offered a maximum subsidy of 500,000 yuan ($69,092) to incentivize agricultural entities to seek digitalized development. Presently, the county has two provincial-level future farms and 12 digital agricultural factories. Additionally, the county has launched a rural e-commerce system, attracting over 10 agricultural enterprises. In 2023, the county's online agricultural product transactions surged to 2 billion yuan.

Deqing has also directed significant investments toward rural infrastructure, including communication facilities and video surveillance, resulting in a 100-percent 5G coverage rate in administrative villages.

In addition, the local government has spearheaded the development of an integrated rural governance system, in which villages are managed through maps based on technologies like big data and the internet of things.