Tencent’s WeChat allows residents in China’s most populous province to skip government queues

WeChat, China’s most popular smartphone app with more than 1 billion active users, now enables residents in southern China’s Guangdong province to skip the queues at government offices and face-to-face talks with civil servants.

That convenience is made possible by a WeChat Mini Program called Yue Sheng Shi, roughly translated in English as “saving the trouble in Guangdong”, which can handle 142 different local government functions, according to an announcement on Monday by Tencent Holdings via its official WeChat account.

The functions made available on the platform included payment of traffic ticket, making appointment for marriage registration, and extending visa on passports and other travel documents, as well as others related to medical care, social security and labour arbitration.

Users in Guangdong, China’s most populous province, are required to register for this WeChat-based initiative with their real names and other personal information to access all the functions. 

This marks the latest public-sector initiative in which Tencent’s WeChat, known as Weixin on the mainland, is being turned into a vital application for government services.