**: The general trend depends on finance
Text: Zhang Ge, a researcher at Caijing.
Under the wave of digital economy, how to transform its dividends into the fruits of prosperity shared by the whole people?
On December 25, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Data Administration (NDDA) issued the Implementation Plan for Promoting Common Prosperity through the Digital Economy (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), which clarified the guiding ideology, development goals, key measures and safeguard measures for promoting common prosperity through the digital economy.
The Plan aims to promote the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy, continuously strengthen, optimize and expand China's digital economy, promote the solution of unbalanced and insufficient development through digital means, promote all people to share the development dividends of the digital era, and help achieve common prosperity in high-quality development.
Taking digital finance as an example, Zhang Xun, a special senior researcher at the Center for Digital Finance at Peking University, used data from the China Household Panel Survey (CFPS) to find that compared with the high threshold of traditional finance, the innovation of digital finance such as Alipay and WeChat Pay has brought convenience to rural residents' entrepreneurial loans, increased the equalization of entrepreneurial opportunities, and achieved poverty reduction and income increase.
Behind this is the strong compatibility between the digital economy and common prosperity. In the view of Wang Fangfang, dean of the School of Digital Economy of Guangdong University of Finance and EconomicsPromoting common prosperity is essentially to decentralize economic development and achieve shared development. As the fifth factor of production, data can be copied and shared indefinitely, which is more inclusive and shareable, which can fundamentally break the constraints of scarce factors of production and promote the coordinated and balanced development of the regional economy in a decentralized way.
The plan proposes that by 2025, the digital economy will promote common prosperity and make positive progress in narrowing the gap between regions, urban and rural areas, groups and basic public services, and the positive role of the digital economy in promoting common prosperity will begin to appearBy 2030, remarkable results will be achieved in accelerating the bridging of disparities between regions, urban and rural areas, groups, and basic public services, and a number of typical cases of east-west cooperation and replicable and generalizable innovative achievements will be formed, and substantial progress will be made in promoting common prosperity in the digital economy.
How to share the "cake" of the digital economy?
The first meaning of "common prosperity" is prosperity. According to the Research Report on the Development of China's Digital Economy (2023) released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the scale of China's digital economy will reach 50 in 20222 trillion yuan, a nominal increase of 10 percent year-on-year3%, which has been significantly higher than the nominal GDP growth rate in the same period for 11 consecutive years. The "cake" of the digital economy has become bigger and bigger.
At the same time, there has been controversy over how digital economy technologies could widen the gap between rich and poor. Xia Jiechang, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Financial and Economic Strategy, pointed out that digital technology has a threshold, and when it is popularized, groups with knowledge and high skills will benefit more, gradually forming a digital divide, leading to poverty and low-skilled groups facing employment difficulties and creating a new income gap. "In the early stage of the development of the digital economy, there will even be the possibility that developed regions will enjoy more development dividends and the gap between regions will widen. ”
The development of the digital economy has become a general trend, how to "make the cake bigger" and "divide the cake" at the same time, the "plan" puts forward four key deployments:
The first is to promote the coordinated development of regional digital development. Promote the construction of digital infrastructure, promote the digital development of the industrial chain, and strengthen the cooperation between the east and west of the digital economy.
The second is to vigorously promote the construction of digital villages. Accelerate the pace of digital transformation of rural industries, increase the cultivation of rural digital talents, and improve the level of rural digital governance.
The third is to strengthen the improvement of digital literacy and employment security. Strengthen digital literacy and skills education and training, implement the "information barrier-free" promotion project, and strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment.
Fourth, promote the inclusive supply of social services. Promote the sharing of high-quality digital education resources, strengthen the capacity of telemedicine supply services, improve the level of informatization of elderly care services, and improve digital social security services.
It is worth noting that cracking the "double-edged sword effect" of the digital economy requires regulation and policy intentionality. Cai Fang, chief expert of the national high-end think tank of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, once pointed out to CaijingThe development of the digital economy cannot automatically produce a "trickle-down effect" of achievement sharing, and only under the premise of full integration and connection can it drive the productivity progress of various industries.
Therefore, in order to achieve the goals of job creation, higher remuneration for workers, and narrowing of income disparities, it is necessary to intensify redistribution, establish and improve a social security system that covers all residents, and better protect workers at the social level. Cai Fang suggested.
Data elements add economic and social empowerment
In addition to common prosperity, the National Data Bureau has also recently announced a number of deployments.
On December 12, the National Data Bureau held an expert symposium on establishing and improving the formation mechanism of public data, accelerating the study and establishment of a mechanism for the formation of public data products and services, and promoting the development and utilization of public data resources.
On December 15, the National Data Bureau released the "No. 1 Document" - Data Elements "Three-Year Action Plan (2024-2026) (Draft for Comments)", proposing to promote the high-level application of data elements in 12 key areas. It is required that by the end of 2026, the breadth and depth of data element application scenarios will be greatly expanded, the multiplier effect of data elements in the field of economic development will be revealed, and more than 300 typical application scenarios with strong demonstration, high visibility and wide driving force will be created, and the average annual growth rate of the data industry will exceed 20%.
In addition, according to the official website of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security on December 20, ** appointed and dismissed state workers and appointed Chen Ronghui as deputy director of the National Data Bureau. At this point, the three directors and deputy directors of the National Data Bureau have completed their appointments, and all the high-level personnel are in place, and the data elements may enter a policy-intensive period.
How to deepen the construction of data element system?
Li Yang, PwC China Data Insights, Cloud Transformation and Data Security Compliance Partner, pointed out to Caijing that the current policy level has pointed out the general direction of the development of the data element market - "pilot first" under the "demand guidance", and the 12 key areas proposed in the "Data Elements" Three-Year Action Plan (2024-2026) (Draft for Comments) will be the foothold. "In the future, it is necessary for the local ** joint industrial park to introduce some supporting measures, and the chain owner enterprises will respond positively to create effective data application scenarios. ”
Huafu believes that under the promotion of policies, government-enterprise cooperation has accelerated, and data and digital business enterprises have ushered in major development opportunitiesWith the implementation of the balance sheet entry policy, the balance sheet expansion of the first batch of enterprises with clear data ownership is on the way, which will accelerate the data value discovery and data profit model exploration of listed companies, and is expected to resonate with the switching of balance sheet valuation.
It is worth noting that the entry of data resources into the table also means that when the data is corrupted or cannot be recovered by extortion, it will cause potential asset impairment. Li Yang pointed out that "once a data security accident occurs in a state-owned enterprise or listed company, it will cause the loss of state-owned assets or affect the financial report of the listed company, and the consequences are much more serious than the simple data security vulnerability in the past." The market's attitude towards data security governance also needs to be more rigorous. ”
In addition, Li Yang said that in the survey, it was found that enterprises also have concerns about the compliance of data circulation, especially financial institutions, Internet giants and state-owned enterprises. Once in the actual operation of data circulation, enterprises must sign agreements with legal benefits, and in the face of data infringement disputes, they must also prove the legitimacy of the data held through judicial means. Therefore, accelerating the implementation of data rights confirmation at the judicial level will be the next key to revitalizing the data element market. ”