Digital economy of China: level and factors of development

Abstract

The article considers the active development and significant impact of digital technologies on people’s lives, functioning of enterprises in various sectors of the economy and government agencies. The level of digital competitiveness is different, which determines the importance of studying and adapting the experience of countries - digital leaders with a developed and rapidly growing digital economy of China. There has been given analysis of the main indicators of the development of China’s digital economy over the period 2018-2020, which showed high growth rates of the digital economy - more than 25%, an increase in the share of the digital economy in GDP by almost 6 p.p. There have been defined the policies, in which China is the undisputed world leader: e-commerce, financial technology, cloud computing, and the export of IT products. China’s strengthening its position in international digital rankings has been analyzed. It was ranked 4th in the Digital Opportunity Index, 16th in the Global Digital Competitiveness Index and 45th in the E-Government Development Index. This became possible due to factors such as the scale and potential of the domestic market, a high level of technological development, an active innovation policy of the state and large Chinese corporations that promotes digitalization, high quality education and research results. Taking into account the processes taking place in the global economy in 2020, the short-term and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development of China’s digital economy have been identified. The short-term effects include the capitalization of restrictions, testing of new technologies and familiarization of the population with new digital opportunities, the long-term ones are the expansion of demand and a change in its structure, an increase in investments in digital transformation, including through public and private support programs