Promote the healthy development of the digital economy
The digital economy is related to the overall situation of national development.
The "Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party's Centennial Struggle" reviewed and approved by the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to "strengthen the real economy and develop the digital economy".
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized in the 34th collective study of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee: the development of the digital economy is a strategic choice to grasp the new opportunities of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation.
So what are the connotations of the digital economy?
What is the prospect of its development?
What is the significance of the Chinese economy?
How can we develop the digital economy?
What is the digital economy
According to the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Digital Economy", the digital economy is the main economic form after the agricultural economy and the industrial economy. , The digital transformation of all factors has become an important driving force to promote a new economic form that is more unified with fairness and efficiency.
The digital economy is generally a concept with a relatively broad meaning. From different perspectives, the connotation boundaries are different.
From the perspective of development path, the digital economy includes two aspects: digital industrialization and industrial digitization.
Through digital industrialization, key technologies and core industries can continuously turn the data created in the process of consumption, production and service into production factors, thereby providing new services and new applications; Realize the digitalization of agriculture and the intelligent upgrade of the manufacturing industry, as well as the popularization of the network of productive and living service industries, so as to continue to use digital technology to transform and empower the three industries.
From the perspective of constituent elements, the digital economy includes two key elements, data and digital technology.
Data has existed since ancient times. After the advent of the Internet, it was recorded and accumulated due to digitization into big data that can be quickly extracted and analyzed by computers.
In recent years, big data has been widely used in human social production, life and social governance, and has become a new element alongside capital, labor and natural resources.
The emergence of this new element has a great impact on world politics, economy and culture, and is worthy of serious study by all sectors of society.
Data elements have the characteristics of low marginal cost, no loss, and easy replication, and are the engine for the deepening development of the digital economy; digital technology has the characteristics of rapid iteration, rapid diffusion, and strong permeability. Both of them can optimize production by accelerating the supply and diffusion of innovation. The configuration of elements in the function can improve the technical efficiency in the production process, reduce transaction costs, and thus improve the competitive advantage of the industry.
From the perspective of the five major industry categories of new structural economics, the digital industry belongs to the industry of changing lanes and supercars.
According to the gap between an industry and the world frontier, whether it is in line with comparative advantages, and the length of the research and development cycle of new technologies and new products, New Structural Economics divides the industries of real economies into five types: catching up, leading, transitioning, Lane-changing supercars and strategic ones.
Among them, the characteristics of the lane-changing supercar industry are: the product and technology research and development cycle is very short, usually a new generation of technology is put into application in 6-18 months, and the key investment in research and development is human capital.
The digital industry meets these conditions and is a typical lane-changing supercar industry.
Significance and Prospects of the Digital Economy
The digital economy is a valuable opportunity for the Chinese economy to change lanes and overtake in the fourth industrial revolution, and it is of great strategic significance for the realization of high-quality development and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
In 2020, the added value of the core industries of my country's digital economy will account for 7.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP), and the digital economy has provided a strong impetus for economic development.
Accelerating the digital transformation of the industry can help the GDP of my country's digital economy catch up with the world's advanced level, and the real economy with manufacturing as the core will also achieve quality and efficiency development.
The combined application of the above five types of industries and the digital economy is of great significance.
For example, the automobile industry is a standard catching-up industry, but new technologies such as driverless driving brought about by the combination of automobiles and digital technology, as well as the extension of the automobile industry to the service industry, have brought opportunities for China's automobile industry to catch up.
For another example, for the leading home appliance industry, digitalization can be used to enhance the value chain and continue to maintain a leading position.
Through the development and growth of the digital industry, the direct driving effect of the digital economy on economic development will be improved; through the digital economy, five industries will be empowered, and data and digital technologies will be used to accelerate the catch-up of backward industries, maintain the advantages of leading industries, and realize the realization of my country's new era and new journey. High-quality development provides momentum.
In addition, in new technologies and new industries represented by big data, artificial intelligence and Internet applications, China not only stands on the same starting line with developed countries, but also has certain comparative advantages in terms of data resources, human capital and market volume. .
One is the data advantage.
Big data is the new factor of production, known as "the oil of the 21st century".
China has more than 1 billion netizens, generating massive data resources.
The second is the talent advantage.
China is a country with large human resources, and the absolute number of innovative talents is high, and it has talent advantages in R&D.
The third is market advantage.
China has the most complete industrial facilities. It is not only a country with a large data and population, but also a country with a large market and application scenarios. The combination of these advantages provides broad prospects for the development of my country's digital economy.
How to develop the digital economy
First, give full play to its comparative advantages and make good use of both domestic and foreign markets.
In the context of global industrial division of labor, it is necessary to fully understand my country's advantageous conditions. For example, its advantages in software, artificial intelligence, application scenarios and other fields should continue to be strengthened; for links without comparative advantages, it is necessary to make full use of international markets and international resources.
The technological upgrading of the digital economy is fast, and companies need a lot of R&D investment to obtain core technologies. China has a super-large market. Losing the Chinese market means that it may lose the ability to continue to invest a lot of R&D funds to maintain technological leadership. Therefore, companies with these core technologies Generally, they attach great importance to the Chinese market.
For those key core technologies that cannot be bought, it is necessary to concentrate on accelerating research and development.
High-quality economic development requires consideration of cost and profitability, and it is unrealistic and impossible to develop all products and technologies by ourselves.
At the same time, it is necessary to keep track of products and technologies in the international market, understand the development of the world, recognize their own shortcomings and strive to catch up.
The second is to actively promote the integration of data and reality to expand the development space.
The integrated development of the digital economy and the real economy can accelerate the upgrading of traditional industries and generate greater value.
Different industries in my country have different degrees of digital and real integration. The consumer service industry and the digital economy have the highest degree of integration and innovation, and some large Internet platform companies are in the forefront of the world in terms of development scale. The reasons are: my country has a good communication and Internet foundation; The population is large and concentrated; there is a developed transportation infrastructure; labor costs are relatively low.
However, there is still a big gap between us and developed countries in the degree of digitalization in the production and service industries with higher added value.
On the whole, there is still room for improvement in the proportion of my country's digital economy in GDP. We must give full play to our comparative advantages, speed up the digital transformation of different types of industries, improve the quality and efficiency of economic development, and turn development opportunities and growth potential into real ones. results and benefits.
Third, as an emerging industry, the digital economy needs to continue to explore and innovate its application scenarios.
For the current stage of development, the government can provide policy support or guarantee in terms of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, strengthening data security, and avoiding monopoly.
For example, compared with the high investment capacity and high enthusiasm of large enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises face higher technology input costs and digitalization thresholds, and the government needs to provide certain policy support and incentive measures to help relevant platform companies develop professional technologies suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises. etc., to help them achieve digital transformation to enhance competitiveness.
On the other hand, the integration of digital technology and the real economy is progressing rapidly in the service industry, but there is still a gap in the manufacturing industry, and corresponding measures need to be taken according to the characteristics of different industries.
In addition, the digital economy is based on data elements and involves massive amounts of personal information. Attention must be paid to the rational use and protection of personal information, so as to prevent companies from using data to form monopoly and hinder innovation.
It is necessary to continuously adjust policies according to the characteristics of the digital economy itself, the characteristics of different industries, the different stages of development of the digital economy, and the characteristics of the integration of digital technology and the real economy, so as to better promote digital industrialization and industrial digitization, achieve high-quality development and build a society in an all-round way. the goal of a modernist and powerful country.
(The author is Professor Lin Yifu of Peking University and Dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics)
"People's Daily" (11th edition on March 28, 2022)