On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang delivered the government work report (hereinafter referred to as the report) at the fifth session of the 13th National People’s Congress. For the first time, this “report” specifically lists the digital economy as a paragraph and makes a series of specific arrangements. At the same time, before and after the “two sessions”, relevant government departments also made frequent voices to layout the development direction of key areas of digital economy. The main concerns are as follows:
First, strengthen the overall layout of Digital China Construction and promote the development of digital economy. Since the government work report was first put forward in 2017, “digital economy” has been directly written into the government work report for five times. This report not only proposes to “strengthen the overall layout of Digital China Construction”, but also adopts a large length to focus on the development of digital economy, which is different from the relatively scattered statements in previous reports. First, with the expansion of the scale and deepening of the integration of the digital economy, there is an urgent need to improve the top-level design to support the overall layout and system construction. In 2020, the scale of China’s digital economy will reach 39.2 trillion yuan, accounting for 38.6% of GDP. During the 14th Five Year Plan period, the scale of China’s digital economy will continue to expand and is expected to maintain an average annual growth rate of about 9%. It is expected that the scale will exceed 60 trillion yuan in 2025. At the same time, the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy has promoted profound changes in economy, society, production and lifestyle. However, with the acceleration of expansion and integration, it also exposed a series of problems, such as insufficient and unbalanced industrial digital transformation, core digital technology to be broken through, shortage of key technical talents, digital governance system to be improved and so on. Therefore, accelerating the improvement of top-level design is conducive to the rational planning of the future development process of digital economy and gradually improve the development system of digital economy. Secondly, accelerating the release of the driving force of the digital economy and promoting high-quality economic development should be based on the overall situation. In 2022, uncertainties such as repeated epidemics, global political and economic turmoil and rising commodity prices have exacerbated the downward pressure on the economy, while the digital economy with information technology and data as key elements shows great potential to effectively hedge the economic downturn. In the first half of 2021, the growth rate of many core industries of digital economy, such as electronic information manufacturing, software and information technology services, exceeded 20%, and the digital transformation of traditional industries also made steady progress. The overall layout is conducive to giving better play to the engine role of digital economy in promoting high-quality economic development. Finally, the overall layout is an important prerequisite for the follow-up deployment of various departments and regions and the coordinated promotion of the digital economy. In December 2021, the State Council initiated the “14th five year plan” for digital economy development, and proposed 11 key construction projects focusing on infrastructure, data elements, digital industrialization, industrial digitization and other aspects. The report once again emphasizes strengthening the overall layout. On the one hand, it has provided important guidance for subsequent departments to carry out corresponding plans and specific measures around the digital economy. Various departments represented by the Ministry of industry and information technology, the Ministry of science and technology and the Ministry of agriculture have issued a series of plans and deployment. Multiple ministries and relevant units have formed a division of labor promotion system with different emphases and mutual coordination, which has effectively promoted the linkage development of digital economy among departments; On the other hand, it will also promote each region to further refine the layout in combination with the regional economic level and industrial foundation. Recently, the government work report of many places has put forward the overall goal of developing the digital economy, such as Beijing’s proposal to “accelerate the release of the new vitality of the digital economy” and Zhejiang’s proposal to “fully promote the accumulation and momentum of the digital economy”. All localities have formed a unique digital economic development path based on the overall planning.
Second, accelerate the construction of digital infrastructure and lay a solid foundation for the development of digital economy. This year’s “report” has an expected GDP growth target of about 5.5%, and points out that “infrastructure investment should be carried out moderately in advance”. Infrastructure investment is an important starting point for steady growth this year. Digital infrastructure construction represented by 5g, data center and industrial Internet will become an important starting point in 2022. During the two sessions, various departments set a series of goals and plans around the development of digital infrastructure. For example, the report proposes to “promote the large-scale application of 5g; accelerate the development of industrial Internet”, the national development and Reform Commission proposes to “accelerate the construction of 10 national data center clusters”, and the Ministry of industry and information technology proposes to “strive to exceed 2 million 5g base stations this year”. On the one hand, promoting the construction of digital infrastructure is conducive to expanding effective investment and stimulating the growth of domestic demand. In February this year, the project of “counting from the east to the west” was officially launched, which is expected to drive an investment of 400 billion yuan per year. According to the calculation of China information and Communication Research Institute, during the 14th Five Year Plan period, China’s new infrastructure investment is expected to reach 10.6 trillion, accounting for about 10% of the infrastructure investment of the whole society; From 2020 to 2025, the cumulative investment in 5g network construction will reach 1.2 trillion yuan, and the investment in driving the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and the application of various industries will exceed 3.5 trillion yuan. On the other hand, the construction of digital infrastructure will provide bottom support for the long-term and high-quality development of digital economy. The deepening development of digital economy will put forward new requirements for digital infrastructure. First, intellectualization. It is estimated that real-time data will account for 25% of the global data circle by 2023. The generation of Beijing Vastdata Technology Co.Ltd(603138) elements requires more convenient collection, more flexible storage and more efficient analysis; Second, green. It is estimated that the energy consumption of national data centers will account for about 2.6% of the power consumption of the whole society in 2021, which is expected to reach 4% by 2025. In the future, the construction of digital infrastructure needs to take into account both efficiency and green; Third, security. In the era of digital economy, the explosive growth of data is facing data security challenges from formation to transmission, storage and analysis. Effective security is expected to further stimulate the potential of data.
Third, strengthen core technology research and promote industrial digital transformation. During the “two sessions”, all departments emphasized promoting breakthroughs in core technologies of digital economy. For example, the report proposed “cultivating and expanding digital industries such as integrated circuits and artificial intelligence”, and the Ministry of science and technology stressed “tackling key problems in some key core technology fields”. At present, there are still deficiencies in the development of core technologies of China’s digital economy. There is a large gap between China and the international advanced level not only in key hardware such as high-end chips and intelligent sensors and key software such as production control and resource management, but also in the digital transformation of traditional industries such as manufacturing and agriculture. At the same time, all departments also actively promote the digital transformation of industry. In terms of agriculture, the implementation plan of science and technology cooperation between the East and the West during the 14th five year plan proposes to “support Xinjiang and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to jointly carry out technical research on improved seed cultivation, digital cotton field, smart farm and so on”; In terms of manufacturing industry, the guidelines for the construction of Internet of vehicles network security and data security standard system puts forward that “by the end of 2023, the Internet of vehicles network security and data security standard system will be preliminarily established”.
