Beijing Daily:
The 14th Five-Year Plan has dedicated a whole chapter to digital development. What will the relevant departments do to advance digital economic development and the building of "Digital China" ? Thank you.
Yang Yuyan:
Thank you for your question. As you said, the 14th Five-Year Plan has dedicated a whole chapter to speeding up digitalization and building a digital China, and has set specific targets and requirements that show that the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to building a digital China. In recent years, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the MIIT has markedly boosted digital economic development. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), China's digital economy registered a growth rate of 16.6%, laying a solid foundation to build a digital China.
First, industrial foundation has been improved. As Mr. Yang mentioned, we have built the largest optical cable network and 4G network in the world. The number of terminal devices connected to the 5G network has exceeded 200 million. Fast development has been witnessed in areas such as the software and IT service sector, the electronic information manufacturing sector, and the communication service sector. Taking software as an example, the sector raked in an accumulated revenue of 8.16 trillion yuan in 2020, an increase of 13.3% year on year.
Second, the pace of digital transformation continues to accelerate. In terms of manufacturing, we have vigorously promoted the construction of the industrial internet. Currently, there are more than 80 industrial internet platforms with various influences in the country, and the number of industrial apps exceeds 350,000, which strongly supports the industry's improvement in quality, cost reduction, and efficiency. In terms of information consumption, we are actively cultivating and promoting new data-driven models and business forms. Especially during the period of COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, online education, telecommuting, and online shopping, among others, have all played a very important role.
Third, we continue to optimize China's environment for development. We have pushed to issue a series of documents, such as the "Several Policies to Promote High-quality Development of Integrated Circuit Industry and Software Industry in the New Era," as well as formulated a batch of national standards, such as the data management capability maturity assessment model. Additionally, we have guided local governments to promote national comprehensive experimental zones for big data, and promote the construction of landmark software industry cities, accelerating the agglomeration and development of the digital industry.
In the next step, under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the MIIT will follow the trends of digitalization, networking, and intelligent development, and accelerate the construction of a digital China. Focus will be put on the following three aspects.
The first is to promote the digital industry to become bigger and stronger. We will focus on the seven key digital industries and ten digital application scenarios listed in the outline for the 14th Five-Year Plan. We will use applications as the driving force to promote the development of emerging strategic industries, such as big data, AI, and blockchain. We will also focus on cultivating an ecosystem for open-source software, and create an internationally competitive digital industry cluster.
The second is to promote the deepening and solid implementation of digital transformation. We will more deeply embed next-generation IT into the manufacturing sector, and use digitalization to drive changes in production methods. We will expand and upgrade information consumption, speed up the construction of information accessibility, and drive lifestyle changes with digitization to benefit people's life and work.
The third measure is to gradually improve the digital ecosystem. We will continue to improve the data management capabilities of enterprises and public institutions, and consolidate the foundations for data processing. We will cultivate big data trading platforms, explore various forms of data transaction models, and promote data circulation. We will effectively collect, manage, and use data, and activate the value of data elements.
At the upcoming Digital China Summit, the MIIT will host five sub-forums across topics such as big data, digital technology innovation, open-source software ecosystem, the industrial internet, and digital society. Here, I also sincerely invite everyone to actively participate in these sub-forums, have in-depth exchanges, and jointly contribute to the construction of digital China. Thank you.
