Digital economy is a new economic form produced with the vigorous development and continuous evolution of digital technology. There is no consensus on such a developing concept. In terms of connotation grasp, industry definition, scale measurement and employment contribution, countries have great differences.

China: Digital industrialization + industrial digitization

REM545BM222BAAA The digital economy is computer-related economic activity, and its classic definition comes from the G20 Initiative on Digital Economy Development and Cooperation (2016). The initiative believes that the digital economy refers to a series of economic activities that use digital knowledge and information as key production factors, modern information networks as an important carrier, and the effective use of information and communication technologies as an important driving force for efficiency improvement and economic structure optimization. It precisely clarifies the “troika” that is essential to driving the new shape of the digital economy: (1) new technologies – information and communication technology, or digital technology; New elements – digital knowledge and information, or data; (3) New facilities – modern information networks, that is, new infrastructure.

Cas is the first national think tank to systematically study the digital economy in China, and has done a lot of pioneering work. Digital industrialization and industrial digitalization was first proposed by the ICT Institute, which has become the basic framework for understanding the digital economy in China. The ICT Institute believes that the digital economy is divided into two parts: digital industrialization and industrial digitalization. Digital industrialization is the basic part of digital economy, that is, REM545BM222BAAA information and communication industry, including electronic information manufacturing industry, telecommunications industry, software and information technology service industry, Internet industry and other four sub-industries; Industrial digitalization is an integrated part of the digital economy, and it is the increase in production quantity and efficiency brought about by the application of digital technology in traditional industries, and its new output constitutes an important part of the digital economy. Subsequently, the Institute of Information and Communication successively added digital governance and data value on the basis of the “two modernizations”, thus having today’s “four modernizations framework”.

It should be noted that ICT still only calculates the two parts of digital industrialization and industrial digitalization in the scale measurement. According to the calculation of the Information and Communication Institute, the proportion of industrial digitalization in the digital economy has increased year by year,REM545BM222BAAA  from 49.1% in 2005 to 80.9% in 2020. From this point of view, the digital economy is an integrated economy, and its role and value are mainly integration and empowerment to help the high-quality development of the national economy. As the scale of the digital economy expands, its share of GDP is also increasing, from 14.2% in 2005 to 38.6% in 2020. Thus, the digital economy is increasingly becoming the economy itself (OECD, 2015).

The 14th Five-Year Plan and the Outline of Vision Goals 2035 (March 2021) proposed a new term – “core industries of the digital economy”, but did not give an explanation. According to the Outline, the added value of China’s digital economy core industry will account for 7.8% of GDP in 2020, and it will reach 10% in 2025 as one of the 20 main indicators of economic and social development in the “14th Five-Year Plan” period.

REM545BM222BAAA In June 2021, the National Bureau of Statistics issued the Statistical Classification of Digital Economy and Its Core Industries (2021), which identified the industrial scope of the digital economy as digital product manufacturing, digital product service industry, digital technology application industry, digital factor driving industry and digital efficiency improvement industry, and 32 medium and 156 small categories. And it is clear that the first four categories are the digital industrialization part, which is the core industry of the digital economy; The fifth category is the digital part of the industry.

(a) digital product manufacturing, including six categories: computer manufacturing, communications and radar equipment manufacturing, digital media equipment manufacturing, intelligent equipment manufacturing, electronic components and equipment manufacturing, other digital product manufacturing.

(2) Digital product service industry, including five categories: digital product wholesale, REM545BM222BAAA digital product retail, digital product rental, digital product maintenance, other digital product service industry.

(c) digital technology application industries, including five categories: software development, telecommunications/radio and television and satellite transmission services, Internet-related services, information technology services, and other digital technology application industries.

(4) Digital factor driven industries, including 7 categories: Internet platform, Internet wholesale and retail, Internet finance, digital content and media, information infrastructure construction, data resources and property rights trading, other digital factor driven industries.

(e) Digital efficiency improvement industries, including 9 types: smart agriculture, smart manufacturing, smart transportation, smart logistics, digital finance, digital commerce, digital society, digital government, and other digital efficiency improvement industries.