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Jinan, the capital of China’s eastern Shandong Province, has taken a proactive step to promote adopting its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) program by implementing digital yuan payments across its entire bus network. The province in Eastern China holds the status of Shandong’s capital and boasts a population exceeding 9.2 million individuals.
During its initial stage, the city conducted trials to introduce CBDC payments on two bus routes. After completing the trial period, the city declared the implementation of the new payment system across its entire bus network.
According to the news outlet Shunwang-Jinan Daily, the city announced that it had updated the software and card readers of all its bus routes. This upgrade will enable the acceptance of payments in the Chinese CBDC across all buses.
Initially, digital yuan payments were tested as a pilot program on two of Jinan’s busiest bus routes which are B52 and BRT5. Due to the resounding success of these test runs, the city authorities have decided to implement digital yuan payment options throughout Jinan’s bus network.
Jinan has introduced fare discounts to encourage the adoption of the digital yuan. Passengers using the CBDC will be required to pay less than $0.01 for journeys with a fee of 2 yuan or less. In cases where the fee exceeds 2 yuan, they will receive a reduced discount of under $0.01. Passengers using the CBDC payment method can enjoy up to two discounted rides per day and six discounted rides monthly.
China Promotes the Adoption of Digital Yuan
The Red Dragon’s drive is seen in its recent decision to pay civil servants’ salaries using the digital currency.
On April 23, the city of Changsha announced its intention to implement this payment method. The city stated that starting in May, all personnel working in public service, public institutions, and state-owned units would receive their salaries in the country’s CBDC. This move is part of a broader effort to encourage the use of the digital yuan nationwide.
Earlier this week, Shanghai unveiled its plans to create 30 cultural metaverse projects to reach $6.9 billion in revenue. Last month, Nanjing released a platform to drive its metaverse-focused research.
As it can be understood from the examples, China is a very active country that deals with the crypto industry and other Web3 technologies. We hope to see that other countries consider the field’s value.
