Many provinces and cities in China have assured stronger efforts to
raise the output of the digital economy, which they hope will better
support the recovery of the larger economy from adverse COVID-19
impacts.
The 31 provincial-level regions in the Chinese mainland have all
highlighted the goal of developing the digital economy in their latest
economic development plans.
And 21 of them have set for themselves the goal of expanding the share of the digital economy in their GDP in the years to come.
Shanghai aims to improve the output of its digital economy-related
core industries to 18 percent of the city's GDP in the coming four years
from 15 percent last year.
Jiangxi province set the target of raising the corresponding figure from the current 35 percent to 45 percent by 2027.
The output of the digital economy-related core industries of Zhejiang
province is expected to reach 1.6 trillion yuan ($235 billion) by 2027,
while the output of the overall digital economy market of Hunan
province is set to exceed 3 trillion yuan.
"The ultimate reason behind boosting the development of the digital
economy is that it will bring new growth impetus to local economic
development, especially in industries, investment and consumption, and
help offset COVID-19 impacts," said Zhao Gang, head of CIO Manage, a
Beijing-based digital economy market consultancy.
During the relevant annual provincial legislature sittings and key
economic conferences, they have mapped out specific measures to develop
the digital economy. Focus will be on infrastructure construction,
especially computing centers, industrial digitalization, emerging
digital industries like the metaverse as well as data transactions.
"The specific goals (of each province or region) are slightly
different based on the development level of the local digital economy.
For instance, industrial digitalization will be prioritized in
manufacturing clusters while computing centers will be prioritized in
energy-rich regions," Zhao said.
Central China's Henan province, home to the world's largest iPhone
factory, will invest 50 billion yuan ($7.39 billion) on digital
infrastructure expansion, according to a work plan recently released by
the Henan Development and Reform Commission.
The province will also promote the digital transformation of its
manufacturing sector. This would involve building 150 smart factories
and 10 provincial-designated industrial internet platforms.
Local governments' efforts to accelerate the development of the
digital economy are in line with China's plan to boost the output of
core industries of the nation's digital economy to 10 percent of the
country's GDP by 2025, up from 7.8 percent in 2020, as noted in China's
14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).
Wei Jianguo, former vice-minister of commerce and vice-chairman of
the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said, "China's
efforts in developing the digital economy will enable companies to not
only lead development in various business sectors in the domestic
market, but also compete further on the global stage in the future."
A white paper released by the China Academy of Information and
Communications Technology, a government think tank, showed that the
market scale of China's digital economy reached $7.1 trillion last year,
which was the second-largest globally.
Ruan Weixiang, chairman of Lonsen, a chemical leader from Zhejiang
province, said: "Digital economy goals really matter. In the past, the
complicated production process used to create instability within Lonsen,
but the setting up of intelligent factories since 2017 has greatly
helped the company to improve manufacturing quality and stability."
Su Ganting, co-founder of Leekr Technology, a smart chassis-by-wire
system solutions provider, said, "Without the great support from the
local government in developing the digital economy, it is impossible for
startups like us to reach mass production merely one year after
foundation."
Su said Leekr has established a complete product line, and is keen to
take advantage of Shanghai's strengths in technological research and
development, in order to accelerate the development of its new digital
products.