Experts highlight data's role in economy

China should leverage its massive data resources to foster new growth drivers and further expand the application scenarios of data in various sectors, given that data has become a new type of production factor and has injected fresh impetus into the high-quality development of the digital economy, experts said.

Jiang Xiaojuan, head of the China Society of Industrial Economics and a professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said data has permeated all aspects of society and has an impact on the allocation of social resources as well as the logic of economic and social operations.

Jiang made the remarks at the Academic Conference on Digital Economy Development and Governance held in Beijing on Wednesday.

Noting that China — as the world's largest data producer — has unique advantages in accelerating the development of its digital economy, Jiang said more efforts are needed to give full play to the multiplier effects of data elements, create more abundant applications in a wider range of sectors and promote the sharing, development and utilization of public data.

Huang Yiping, dean of Peking University's National School of Development, said the utilization of data elements is still in its initial stages. Huang called for efforts to establish a data trading mechanism in an orderly manner, ensure data security and strengthen privacy protections.

China's total data output reached 32.85 zettabytes in 2023, an increase of 22.4 percent year-on-year, while the added value of core digital economy industries accounted for 10 percent of GDP, according to the National Data Administration.

The country is accelerating steps to promote reforms related to the market-oriented allocation of data elements, and plans to roll out eight guidelines that cover data property rights, circulation, revenue distribution, security governance and the development and utilization of public and enterprise data this year, said the NDA.

The regulator has unveiled a guideline to expand the application scenarios of data elements in 12 key fields such as manufacturing, modern agriculture, trade circulation, transportation and financial services.

Industry experts highlighted the significance of promoting the classification of data resources and confirmation of data-related rights, exploring the data pricing mechanism and value assessment system, and bolstering the circulation, transaction and utilization of data, as data is playing a vital role in promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries.

Ouyang Rihui, assistant dean of the China Center for Internet Economy Research at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said data elements have been rapidly integrated into various areas like production, circulation, consumption and social services, and are playing an increasingly vital role in bolstering industrial upgrades.

The in-depth integration of data with traditional industries will improve production efficiency, optimize the allocation of resources, and create novel business models and new social value, he said.

Data elements own the attributes of commodities, which could be effectively allocated through market evaluation and trading, so as to create huge economic and social value, he added.

The country unveiled 20 key measures in December 2022 to build basic systems for data and fully unleash the value of data resources. The basic systems involve the establishment of a data property rights system, a circulation and trading system, a revenue distribution system and a security governance system.

The digital economy is currently booming across the globe. New industries and forms of business, buoyed by innovative digital technologies like big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, are finding a wide range of applications across various industries and integrating with the real economy.

According to a white paper released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the total scale of digital economy in the United States, China, Germany, Japan and South Korea exceeded $33 trillion, an increase of more than 8 percent year-on-year, accounting for 60 percent of these countries' GDP.