China-EU co-op to help China's fast growing digital economy: expert

BRUSSELS - The director general of BusinessEurope said in a recent interview with Xinhua that China-EU cooperation can help realize growth potential in China's digital economy.

Markus J Beyrer, director general of BusinessEurope, an association of enterprises in 33 European countries, said the digital industry is a game changer for the global economy and will have a huge impact on EU competitiveness.

Intelligent, interconnected systems now seamlessly support industrial activities along the entire value chain, he added.

Europe will have to reap the benefits of this huge potential, putting in place a real strategy to digitize all sectors of the economy.

He noted that by 2025, Europe's manufacturing industry would gain a gross value worth 1.25 trillion euros ($1.36 trillion). However, he warned if Europe fail to turn the digital transformation to their advantage, the potential losses can be up to 600 billion euros by 2025 or over 10 percent of Europe's industrial base.

Talking about China's digital economy, Beyrer said China's Internet industry is growing fast, but until now it has largely been consumer-driven rather than enterprise-driven.

Large e-commerce firms have driven sales and transformed retailing, but small and medium sized enterprises still lag behind in using the Internet for procurement, sales and marketing purposes, he said.

"It is clear that there is a lot of potential for growth in China's digital economy too, China needs to liberalize its market to encourage new innovations and robust competition would accelerate China's productivity," said Beyrer.

Beyrer underlined that European companies have the required expertise and can help China realize its potential by engaging the Chinese market on commercial terms.