China’s digital economy worth nearly $5.4 trillion in 2020

ISLAMABAD: China’s digital economy was worth nearly $5.4 trillion last year, ranking second in the world, representing a year-on-year growth of 9.6 per cent, the fastest in the world, a report issued by the Economic Information Daily said.

The result was announced at the 2021 Global Digital Economy Conference, which is in progress in Beijing, and co-hosted by the Beijing municipal government, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, and the Cyberspace Administration of China.

According to the global digital economy white paper released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, last year, the value addition for the digital economy reached $32.60 trillion in 47 nations, with a nominal growth rate of 3 per cent on a yearly basis, the China daily reported.

At the conference, more policy signals were released to further speed up the development of the digital economy, including research and development breakthroughs and iterative applications in high-end chips and key basic software, green smart data and computing facility layouts, and promoting digital transformation in the manufacturing sector.

In the wake of the fragile global economic recovery, the digital economy has become a key to realising the economic recovery and promoting sustainable development, as well as a new driver to boost high-quality development, Cyberspace Administration of China director Zhuang Rongwen said.

Developing the digital economy has enormous significance, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xiao Yaqing said. Next, the country will strengthen efforts to tackle key problems in core technologies, strengthen areas of weakness and build an independent, controllable, safe and reliable information technology system.

The government will put more efforts into advancing the digital transformation in the manufacturing sector, and also promote implementation of the “5G plus industrial internet” innovation development project and smart manufacturing project, Yaqing said.

Digital technologies should better empower small, medium and large enterprises to fully support industrial upgrading, he said, adding that an open, fair and nondiscriminatory development environment should be built up for the digital economy.

The local governments are also actively planning a new round of measures to speed up the construction of a highland for the digital economy.

According to a document published by the government of the Beijing municipality, after continual efforts over about 10 years, Beijing aims at becoming a leader in the city digital smart transformation, global data deployment hubs, emerging digital industry incubators, global digital technology innovation, digital governance in China and digital economy opening-up.

The country should build new, quality and reliable bases for the digital economy, promote the popularisation of information infrastructure, and explore the new and innovative spaces for the digital economy, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology vice president Yu Xiaohui said.

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