China’s online tech giants point to digital transformation as a primary driver of economic growth and recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shen Jianguang (沈建光), chief economist with JD.com subsidiary JDD, said to China Securities Journal said that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic China will welcome a “golden era” for the digital economy and see the acceleration of new infrastructure development including 5G, Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT.
“China is currently in the second-phase of in-depth integration of the digital economy and the real economy, which is the digitisation of industry and the industrialisation of data,” said Shen.
“The accelerated integration of big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, industrial IoT and other next generation digital technologies with the real economy will bring limitless possibilities to new industries and new business models.”
Tencent vice-president Ma Bin (马斌) said that digitisation will “inject new vigour” into the economy and society, and play a key role in re-starting and restoring China’s economy in the wake of COVID-19.
“All enterprises will undergo reshaping, and all industries will remould themselves online,” said Ma at the 2020 Digital Economy Leadership Summit (2020数字经济领航者峰会) held in Beijing.
