By Long Guoqiang, DRC

The information technology (IT) application has been and will become more influential to the national economic and social development. For China, the economic development has entered the state of the new normal, facing the arduous task of getting beyond“middle income trap”. If China could make the best use of IT application to promote economic transformation and upgrading,it could not only provide new impetus for economic development, but may also realize the goal of overtakingthe developed countries in the corner, which is of strategic significance. In terms of promoting the upgrading of China's economic transformation through IT application,China enjoys a lot of advantages, but also faces many challenges. The favorable conditions are as follows.First,China hasa strong information industry base. Second, the domestic market has great potential for development. Third, to promote economic restructuring and development through IT applicationis becoming a national consensus and action.Although some progress has been made through IT application to promote economic restructuring, it must be pointed out that there are still many problems and challenges.For example, there is a wide gap between China’s core technology and equipment and advanced world level. Information security is a challenging issue facing the whole world.Due to the lack of core technology, the information security situation is more serious than ever. China's information infrastructure development is lagging behind, constraining the development of IT application.Innovation-oriented financial service system is not perfect.The development of IT has raised a higher demand on institutional environment, the traditional concepts of supervision and management system are no longer adaptable to the needs of IT development.According to the actual situation of China, it is believed that China should implement IT application intwo areas and with two driving forcesto promote the upgrading of China's economic transformation (i.e. 2 plus 2 strategy). The two areas refer tothe development of IT application and the promotion of other industriesthrough IT application.The two driving forces refer to technology innovation and business model innovation. The implementation of “2 plus 2” upgrading strategy needs joint efforts from all walks of life. Enterprise is the main body and the government plays an irreplaceable role. The government should focus on the following aspects of work: first, in accordance with the deployment of "2 plus 2" strategy, it should integrate and improve current related strategy and policy measures. Second, it should take an open and inclusive approach toward information innovation as well as a“follow-up mode”for system construction. Third, it should improve the infrastructure relating to IT application. Fourth, it should construct an open and innovative system environment, and remove the “bottleneck” restrictions on the development of key IT technologies and equipment.And fifth, it should take technology and management as the leverage tostrengthen the construction of information security.

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