The Italian government on Tuesday approved the 2011-2012 budget which heavily cuts down on public expenditures in a bid to stabilize the country's finance and sustain its weak economic revival.
Major cuts concern public administration costs, ministries' budgets and state employees whose salary growth is set to freeze for a three-year period.
The budget's goal is to raise a total of 24 billion euros (30 billion U.S. dollars) through a curb on public expenditures and increased revenues primarily deriving from a tougher crackdown on tax dodgers.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti met with the country's top trade unions and local regional authorities Monday, calling for a greater spirit of cooperation in such a hard moment when Europe was trying to cope with the Greek debt crisis.
Tremonti said that the budget was harsh and sacrifices were necessary from all parts if Italy wanted to reduce its dangerous debt level.
The Italian regions lamented the budget cuts, while the workers' unions were planning to organize a general strike in protest against the austerity policies.
The opposition has challenged to modify the budget when it goes to the parliament for approval.
Italy's financial maneuver is in line with Europe's emergency strategy following the Greek default.
Berlusconi met with the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso last Friday to discuss the urgency of shielding the euro zone's stability with a series of coordinated actions aimed at curbing public debts and spending levels of the European Union member states.
In recent years, the "smart city" has gradually become a hot topic, give the public a expectation on better future city life. In the international arena, has been more than 200 "smart city" projects are being implemented. Some domestic cities are taking positive action, Shanghai put forward that take advantage of urban wisdom to building a smart city, Wuhan in October last year, has taken substantive steps to construct smart city, Ningbo in September 2010 to make a decision on building a smart city, then introduced five-year Action Platform for the smart city construction. The city has also been classified as hubs of the province to build a central hub "smart city system. Conform to the wave of smart city, develop intelligent industry in the city to promote the construction of “two districts six cities ", the first to build a moderately prosperous society of a higher level to benefit the whole people, should play an active role.
An "intelligent life", and "smart city" is closer to us
Last year, two reports on Zhejiang may not seem like much, but let us smell the atmosphere of "intelligent life", see the dawn of the "smart city".
The first report: Ningbo held the first China Intelligence Fair, provincial ministries tripartite signed a "smart city" pilot cooperation agreement. September 2, 2011, China's first smart city Expo - 2011 China Smart City technology and application products Exposition "held in Ningbo. Three days exhibition, 310 enterprises participate in the exhibition, 16 total investment of 6.5 billion smart city cooperation projects located in Ningbo.