context: MIIT is calling upon the digital economy to reach C¥6 tn by 2020 and contribute considerably to overall GDP. This may be difficult due to a sluggish economy, external risk, reliance on imported technology and legal uncertainty. Top policy advisors call for boosting support and clarifying privacy regulations, among other things.
Promoting the digital economy will stimulate consumption, but it will also have profound implications for the supply side, nudging manufacturing enterprises towards big data analytics, internet of things (IoT), cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI), says Li Yizhong 李毅中 former Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) minister. Li argues that becoming a manufacturing powerhouse and an internet powerhouse has so far been facilitated by
- improvements in internet infrastructure
- high-speed broadband networks accessible by 53.3 percent of the population
- fibre-optical network accessible by 86.7 percent of households
- 46.2 percent decline in mobile data cost
- ICT industry added C¥7 tn in value in 2017, 8 percent of GDP
- R&D in core technologies
- 67.4 percent adoption rate of digitalised tools in R&D
- 9.8 patents per 10,000 people
- 60 percent of patents filed by private sector
Li highlights hurdles for further growth
- technological bottlenecks
- core components
- high-end chips
- integrated circuits (IC)
- basic software
- data processing, analysis and visualisation
- reluctance among industrial enterprises due to insufficient ICT knowledge
- concerns over impact of automation on employment
- two million workers were laid off during Zhenjiang's 'Robotics campaign'
- cybersecurity and privacy concerns
An Hui 安晖 China Centre for Information Industry Development Institute of Electronics director recommends
- improving policies
- issue a national 'digital economy blueprint' in 2018
- extend local pilots
- Guizhou, Shanxi and Fuzhou issued digital economy development plans
- promoting cross-sector integration to
- coordinate R&D, manufacturing, logistics and consumption
- apply ICT in manufacturing
- collaborate in R&D
- exchange skilled labour
- addressing ethics, data protection and individual privacy
- standardising statistical and quantification measurements