China's State Council releases info on WeChat

BEIJING - China's cabinet, the State Council, has begun to release government information on Wechat via a public account.

The account on Wechat, a hugely popular Chinese messaging app with over 400 million users, is named after and managed by the Gazette Office of the State Council.

The Wechat account is aimed at publicizing administrative laws and orders of the State Council, personnel appointments and removals, and important government rules and documents, according to its profile.

The account released its first notice on Tuesday, with the debut concerning changes of personnel in the state forestry fire-prevention office.

On Wednesday, it used the account to issue a circular on the urban planning approval of an eastern city.

Wechat, developed by leading Chinese IT company Tencent, has become a hot platform for officials and governments at different levels to release information and show transparency, following such a trend on Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

Followers can view, download and share information and documents released by a public Wechat account, but they cannot comment as they do on Weibo.