By LI Linxu

From big data to e-commerce, China is aiming to take its digital economy to a new level in the coming few years.

By 2025, 10 percent of its GDP is expected to come from the added value of core digital industries, up from 7.8 percent in 2020, according to a document released by the State Council on January 12.

The document, titled the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for Digital Economy Development, draws up the country's roadmap to build a digital powerhouse.

In recent years, the digital economy is booming in China, with significant progress made in information infrastructure, digital transformation of industries, and new business modes.

Today, China is the world's second largest digital economy in scale, and leads the world in many digital fields, such as 5G, industrial Internet and e-commerce.

The country is also the largest e-commerce market globally, generating almost 50 percent of the world's transactions. In 2021, China's e-commerce market is predicted to be larger than the U.S., UK, Japan, Germany and France combined.

Visitors walk past an exhibition stand featuring e-currency in China International Fair for Trade in Services 2021. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

And its potential is still enormous. By 2025, China's e-commerce transaction scale is expected to rise to 46 trillion RMB from 37.2 trillion RMB in 2020, according to the outline.

The software and information technology service industry is also expected to grow from 8.16 trillion RMB in 2020 to 14 trillion RMB in 2025.

To achieve these goals, the outline puts forward a series of key tasks, including optimizing and upgrading digital infrastructure, bringing data element into full play, and accelerating digital industrialization.

Aiming to build a smart comprehensive digital information infrastructure, China will focus on areas such as gigabit broadband, 5G, and 6G.

It anticipates the users of gigabit broadband to increase from 6.4 million in 2020 to 60 million in 2025.

Meanwhile, the country will promote the commercial deployment and large-scale application of 5G.

Other key areas such as core technology innovation, elevating the digital level of public services and improving governance systems are greatly emphasized in the outline.

The outline also calls for expanding international cooperation on the digital economy, including cross-border data flow, cross-border e-commerce, and governance cooperation.

As digital technologies and industrial development are deeply intertwined, actively participating in international cooperation on the digital economy is essential to promote high-level opening-up, according to an article written by the National Development and Reform Commission, adding that China is building a "Digital Silk Road" to benefit people around the world.