China to redouble efforts to develop digital economy

BEIJING - China will redouble its efforts to develop the digital economy, the State Council said in a report submitted to the ongoing session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee for review Friday.

Over the past decade, China's digital economy has witnessed remarkable development, the report said, noting that its scale has ranked second in the world for years, and the digital economy has played an increasingly important role in supporting economic and social development.

In 2021, China's trade via cross-border e-commerce stood at nearly 2 trillion yuan ($279 billion), data from the report showed.

The country has so far signed the Digital Silk Road memorandums of understanding for cooperation with 16 countries and advanced the Silk Road E-commerce bilateral cooperation mechanism with 24 countries.

However, the report pointed out that there is still room for improvement in the sector's strength and quality. Work shall be done in areas including achieving breakthroughs in core technologies, building digital infrastructure, and promoting the development of digital industries and the digital transformation of traditional industries.

The report also called for improving digital public services, enhancing the governance of the digital economy, stepping up network and data security protection, and actively participating in global cooperation in the digital economy.

The report expects that China will strive to form a unified, fair, competitive, orderly, mature, and complete modern market system for the digital economy by 2035. The report predicts China would rank among the world leaders in terms of the digital economy's development foundation and industrial system.