Expo shows China's role in boosting economy

In addition, through the CIIE platform, the company signed a total of $3.47 billion in intent-to-purchase agreements with foreign countries over the past four events, covering cotton, oil and mineral resources. Among them, orders with the Belt and Road Initiative markets hit $1.91 billion.

"Despite the rampant COVID-19 pandemic, the company's trade cooperation with foreign counterparts has expanded to a larger scope and a deeper level," said Yang Xiaohui, SDIC's deputy general manager.

The digital economy was a key topic at this year's CIIE, where many companies showcased their latest technologies or innovative products and services. Omron Healthcare presented the international debut of its latest intelligent health-management terminal, which integrates a display of health data, status analysis and medical information. It is able to connect to blood pressure monitors and blood glucose meters to automatically produce measurement data and generate health analysis reports.

According to Kazunori Tokura, executive vice-president of Omron Healthcare China, the company's blood pressure monitor has seen over 300 million units sold globally, among which the Chinese market accounted for around 20 percent, the largest single source of sales.

According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a Beijing-based government think tank, China has become a leader in the digital economy, attracting companies from both home and abroad to invest and develop. The market size of the country's digital economy surged 9.6 percent year-on-year last year, the fastest worldwide.

"China's digital economy, which is indeed in the fast lane, has become a new growth driver of the country's economic growth amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It has and will play an important role in driving economic recovery globally," said Gong Ke, president of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations and executive director of the Chinese Institute for New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Strategies.

"While data is an important factor for the digital economy, more effort should be made to bridge the digital divide to benefit more user groups. To be specific, we need to improve infrastructure construction and the sharing of computing power from leading companies to smaller ones," Gong said during an event of the fourth Hongqiao International Economic Forum during the CIIE.