China's digital economy ushered in a turning point from big to strong

2021.04.27

On April 25, the Cyberspace Administration of China released the "Digital China Development Report (2020)" at the main forum of the Fourth Digital China Construction Summit. The report pointed out that my country's digital economy has ranked second in the world, and the added value of the core industries of the digital economy accounted for 7.8% of GDP. The average tariff for fixed broadband and mobile phone traffic dropped by more than 95% compared to 2015, and the average network speed increased by more than 7 times.

In the era of big data, the rapid development of China's digital economy has injected new impetus into China's economic giants. As of December 2020, the number of Internet users in my country has reached 989 million, and the Internet penetration rate has reached 70.4%. Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, telemedicine, online education, sharing platforms, collaborative office, etc. have developed rapidly. The Internet industry has played an active role in promoting economic recovery and ensuring social operations, helping my country to become the only global economy to achieve positive economic growth in 2020 Major economies. In the post-epidemic era, China's economy achieved an impressive year-on-year growth of 18.3% in the first quarter.

The digital economy includes not only the traditional economy relying on information technology to carry out digital stock transfer, but also technology upgrades-such as 5G-supported Internet technology upgrades (artificial intelligence, etc.) to derive new economic models. More importantly, the era of big data is also a profound new technological revolution, spawning new productivity and creating new economic results.


The competition in the digital economy is fierce, and economies are still running on a tight track with no end in sight. According to the Blue Book of the "Global Digital Economy Competitiveness Development Report" recently released by the Information Research Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the United States has ranked first in the world in digital economy competitiveness for four consecutive years, while Singapore and China ranked second and third. Although the gap between China and the United States in the competitiveness of the digital economy has been narrowing year by year, China's digital economy is still large but not strong. China's digital economy is facing the dual task of rapid growth (large-scale) and high-quality development (improving content).

It is worth noting that Chinese people also urgently need to carry out the national enlightenment of the digital economy, and to reverse the bias in the understanding of Chinese people, market players and Internet practitioners. One is to calm down from the carnival feast of e-commerce and online shopping. The excitement of platform sales is at the initial stage of the digital economy. The second is to change the profit-seeking behavior of platform economic entities blindly pursuing business models and innovating to pursue flow manufacturing outlets, and urge them to invest more capital in technological innovation, especially in strengthening the core chain. The third is to elevate end users from basic lifestyles and simple business transactions such as mobile payment, social entertainment, live streaming, etc., to the track of high-quality development of the digital economy.


The country must not only have a systematic digital economy development strategy, but also enhance the sustainable development momentum of the digital economy by making up for shortcomings and strengthening the foundation. When the world, especially the developed economies such as the United States, realize that 5G technology has become the core productivity of national competition, China should grasp the advantages of new Internet technologies and let the information flow in the era of big data serve the digital economy. If China has laid the foundation for the digital economy in the IT era, China will improve its big data system in the AI ​​era supported by 5G technology or higher intergenerational technologies to realize the transformation and upgrading of the digital economy and high-quality development.

The "14th Five-Year Plan" and the 2035 long-term goal outline put forward to give full play to the advantages of massive data and rich application scenarios, promote the in-depth integration of digital technology and the real economy, empower the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, promote the creation of new industries, new formats and new models, and expand the economy Develop a new engine. Specifically, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of new infrastructure such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and big data centers, promote the coordinated and integrated development of traditional industries and new infrastructure, and strive to create a modern foundation that is intensive, efficient, economical, smart, green, safe and reliable Facilities system.


The digital economy in China has penetrated into all areas of national lifestyles and markets. Therefore, China has the advantage of writing a digital economy legend. To create a digital economy legend, we must always pay attention to data security and build a safety net. Of course, taking advantage of the first-mover advantage of the digital renminbi is also proper.

【Editor's Choice】