Beijing, 13 January 2022 (TDI): China’s cabinet issued a plan on Wednesday that details the push towards a more robust digital economy, making this sector a major part of its total GDP by investing in technologies like 6G and developing big data centers across the country. The state council has set several targets for 2025.
Specifically, the growth of the digital economy’s portion of the national GDP from 7.8% in 2020 to 10% in 2025. Other targets include increasing the number of digital broadband users from 6.4 million in 2020 to 60 million in 2025. Digital broadband is the highest speed internet available.
China is set to invest a sizeable amount of money for the construction of a gigabit optical fiber network along with a robust 5G network infrastructure.
Additionally, the plan aims to promote the commercial deployment and large-scale application of 5G.
The country is also paving the way for research and development for 6G technology and also aims to participate in its global standardization. The plan also details rectifying several deficiencies in China’s digital economy.
“The development of China’s digital economy also faces some problems and challenges: the lack of innovation capacity in key areas…data resources are huge, but the potential has not been fully released; the digital economy governance system needs to be further improved.” said the plan.
The size of the software and information technology sector in China is set to increase rapidly. Estimates show that it will grow from $1.28 trillion (8.16 trillion Yuan) in 2020 to $2.20 billion (14 trillion yuan) in 2025. Additionally, online retail sales are estimated to reach 17 trillion yuan in 2025, up from 11.
76 trillion yuan in 2020.
Digital Economy
Digital Economy refers to an economy that is based on digital computing technologies. A digital economy enables transactions and communication to take place via information technologies. The digital economy enhances growth as well as labor productivity while also reducing production costs.
