Experts discuss digital economy in Prague

Chinese and Czech experts exchanged views on digital economy and its challenges at a seminar held last month in Prague, the Czech Republic.

Addressing the seminar, Zhang Jianmin, Chinese ambassador to the Czech Republic, said the scale of digital economy in China has reached about $4.39 trillion, accounting for 34.8 percent of the gross domestic product.

China has not only taken a lead in the fields like cloud computing, big data, but also cultivated new industries such as on-line shopping and mobile payment, he said.

As openness and sharing are two major characteristics of the digital economy, Li said, China is willing to improve cooperation with all countries in this sector and make joint efforts to create a fair and non-discriminatory environment for the development of digital companies. "As China is now taking the lead in many aspects of digital economy, its policies especially on 5G and artificial intelligence are relevant to corresponding industries in the Czech Republic and other countries," said Milos Balaban, executive secretary of the Czech-Chinese Center of the Charles University.

Sun Jiping, executive director-general of the Shanghai Digital Silk Road Industrial Innovation and Cooperation Center, said that in an era of globalization, the development of digital economy relies heavily on cooperation and companies need to learn from each other. Vladimir Marik, professor with the Czech Technical University in Prague and a founder of the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics at the university, called for dealing with the digital economy in a balanced and smart way as there are a lot of unknown zones in this area, including the security issue.

Xinhua

(China Daily 10/08/2019 page6)