More efforts urged to boost data-powered economy

China should speed up efforts to boost the development of the data factor market, in a move to better drive the digital economy and foster high-quality development for the coming five years, said a national political adviser.

"Data is the most important strategic resource and core asset in the era of the digital economy," said Lai Mingyong, a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. "While China has made considerable progress in terms of making policies, development scale, applications and technological innovations, there are problems that hinder the free flow of data and information. More urgent efforts are needed to spur the innovation and boost the data-powered economy."

Lai proposed promoting the free flow of data and information among both governments and enterprises, saying more efforts are needed to accelerate the practice of public data sharing for government at all levels and encourage enterprises to establish data sharing platforms.

According to him, the government needs to make a big push to promote data exchanges and distribution, drive the deep integration between data and the real economy, continuously speed up the digital transformation and smart upgrading of traditional infrastructure, and better regulate data exchanges and distribution.

In recent years, China has been working hard to scale up measures to spur digital economy growth.

China's digital economy reached 35.8 trillion yuan ($5.5 trillion) in 2019, accounting for 36.2 percent of the country's total GDP, according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies.

Last April, the country announced guidelines to help improve mechanisms for market-based allocation of production factors. The document said the government would take key measures to energize the supply of technology and accelerate the cultivation of the data market.