Xi: Advance sound growth of digital economy

Nation urged to seize fresh opportunities from new round of scientific revolution

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has highlighted the importance for China to promote the sound development of the digital economy, saying that it is a choice with strategic significance in order to seize the new opportunities from the new round of the scientific and industrial revolution.

In a speech delivered at a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Monday, Xi said that the digital economy has become a key force in restructuring the global economy and transforming the global competitive landscape in recent years. The internet, big data, cloud computing and other technologies are being increasingly integrated into all sectors of economic and social development.

He called for efforts to strengthen and expand China’s digital economy through promoting the in-depth integration of digital technologies with the real economy and using such technologies to transform traditional industries and create new industries and business types.

Noting that the digital economy in China has developed rapidly and made remarkable achievements since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, Xi said that since the COVID-19 pandemic started, the digital economy has played an important role in supporting China’s efforts to fight the virus and to resume production and life.

The sound growth of the digital economy will help China advance the fostering of a new development paradigm, promote the building of a modernized economy and build up the nation’s new competitive edges in the current era, said Xi, who is also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

He stressed making breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields through self-dependent innovation, urging efforts to make good use of the nation’s advantages in terms of the socialist system and a super-sized domestic market.

China must uphold the autonomy of developing the digital economy, he said.

Xi said that the new infrastructure construction must be accelerated to build an information “artery” for economic and social development.

To promote the integrated development of the digital economy and the real economy, Xi called for efforts to digitize the manufacturing, service and agriculture sectors and to transform traditional industries with new internet technologies. Digital technologies should play an enhanced role in promoting economic development, he added.

Xi said that the development of the digital industry in key fields should focus on strategic and cutting-edge areas and serve major technological breakthroughs and major development demands.

According to Xi, an all-around, multitiered and multidimensional supervision system should be set up to regulate the development of the digital economy in order to ensure fair competition.

Practices that undermine public interests and impede fair competition will be corrected, and monopolistic behavior by internet platform companies and the disorderly expansion of capital will also be prevented, he said.

Xi required efforts to perfect relevant laws and regulations as well as policies and systems in order to further modernize China’s system and capacity for digital economy governance. While departments should coordinate with each other to carry out supervision, enterprises responsible for internet platforms should also set up a mechanism for industry self-regulation, he said.

China will also actively engage in international cooperation on the digital economy and participate in negotiations on digital economy-related topics in international organizations to make China’s proposals and contribute China’s views in a timely manner, he said.

Xi has underlined the importance of developing the internet and the digital economy on many occasions.

In a congratulatory letter to the 2021 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit last month, Xi said that China is willing to work with other countries to shoulder the historical responsibility of promoting human progress by stimulating the vitality of the digital economy, enhancing the efficiency of digital government, optimizing the digital social environment, setting up a digital cooperation structure and building a strong digital security shield.