The official news publication for China’s financial regulatory agencies has published a front-page opinion piece calling for the digital economy to play a greater role in the country’s high-quality economic development.
“Since striding into the 21st century, and following rapid innovations in the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and the blockchain, the digital economy has grown at unprecedented speeds, expanded to an unprecedented breadth, and achieved unprecedented influence,” writes Xiang Mengxi (项梦曦) in an opinion piece entitled “Allow the Digital Economy to Become a New Engine for High-quality Growth of the Chinese Economy” (让数字经济成为中国经济高质量发展新引擎) published on 11 March by Financial News.
“Facing the future, China must further strengthen breakthroughs in key core technologies, accelerate the development of new infrastructure, drive the development of digital industries in key areas, create and embrace new models, and truly mould the digital economy into a new engine for high-quality economic development.”
Figures from the Chinese government indicate that China’s digital economy posted 9.7% growth in 2020 to reach 39.2 trillion yuan, accounting for 38.6% of GDP.
By contrast in 2020 the collective added value of the digital economies of 47 countries globally saw nominal year-on-year growth of 3% to reach USD$32.6 trillion. This amount accounted for 43.7% of their collective GDP, as compared to 40.3% in 2018.
