Beijing economic zone to supercharge digital economy

The Beijing Daxing Economic Development Zone has unveiled a three-year action plan to promote the rapid development of the digital economy.

Chang Xuezhi, director of the administrative commission of the zone, said the plan will build an industrial cluster with revenues from the digital economy reaching over 100 billion ($13.8 billion).

By 2025, the zone will strive to become a new engine for regional economic development, a new pacesetter for the global digital economy, a new carrier for digital technological innovation and application and a new model for the development of digital industrial parks. By then, revenues of digital enterprises in the zone are set to reach over 100 billion yuan, according to the plan.

Chang added more efforts will be made to boost digital technological innovation, strengthen data application, introduce more talent and further tackle issues faced by enterprises and create a world-class business environment.

Chang made the remarks at a forum dubbed "Digital Future · Forum on High-Quality Development of the Next Generation Software Industry" in Daxing district on Wednesday.

Wang Shaopeng, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said software is the foundation of digital economic development and will help boost China's strength in manufacturing, cyberspace and build a digital China.

According to Wang, the revenue of China's software business reached over 10 trillion yuan in 2022, up by 11.2 percent year-on-year.

He also warned of challenges and difficulties from a more complicated international situation and imbalances and inadequacies in the industry's overall development, saying more efforts should be made to accelerate key software breakthroughs and applications, promote the open-source development and accelerate the high-quality development of the software industry.

Wang's views were echoed by Zhu Xi'an, deputy head of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, who said the software industry has become a key driving force for the development of the digital economy.

Looking ahead, he said Beijing will boost the development of emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing and blockchain. More efforts will be made to continuously optimize the business environment and increase the support for next-generation software in terms of financing, talents and intellectual property.