China seeks to develop national standards to boost the development of blockchain industry.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology(MIIT) announced on March 12 that it is considering to set up a national technical standardization committee for blockchain and distributed ledger technology(DLT).

The ministry’s division of Information and Software Services,along with China Electronic Technology Standardization Institute, an institution for compiling standards for electronic and IT industry under MIIT, will lead efforts to form the committee . But the list of committee members has not been released yet, according to Shanghai Securities News’ report.

The initiative is welcomed by China’s blockchain companies. A Hangzhou-based blockchain entrepreneur said, establishing blockchain standards led by the government body will lead to the ” healthy growth of the industry”. For example, it requires some specifications when blockchain technology is applied in offline industries such as finance and communications. I

MIIT indicates that, at present, major international standards organizations, including the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), have pioneered in developing standards for blockchain world.

And China presses forward to standardize blockchain industry in an orderly manner. It has participated in the TC 307 committee under International Organization for Standardization, which is working on standards of blockchain framework, identity authentication and smart contracts.

Plus, the first Blockchain Reference Architecture (BRA) was officially released in China last May. The BRA standard defines terms and definitions related to blockchain, and specifies reference architecture, characteristics and deployment pattern of blockchain and DLT. It serves a reference guideline for various businesses when picking blockchain service.

Li Ming, director of the Blockchain Research Office of MIIT,emphasized in a previous interview that the development of blockchain requires the validation and iteration of standards, technologies and business models.

“The primary purpose for standardization of blockchain is to tell everyone what blockchain is from the technical point of view and how to use it. The standardization of blockchain is to promote the healthy development of the entire industry instead of forecasting the future.”

Although China has banned ICO activities and put the lid of domestic cryptocurrency tradings, both Chinese government and big companies actively embrace the underlying technology of bitcoin, seeking to keep the country at the forefront of the blockchain industry.