The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee proposed to develop digital economy, promote digital industrialization and industrial digitalization, and promote the deep integration of digital economy and real economy. In recent years, a new generation of information technology represented by artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and big data. It is widely and deeply infiltrating into all fields of economy and society. The digital transformation of agriculture, industry and service industry has been steadily advanced, new technologies, new formats and new models have been developed in competition, and the integration of the real economy and the digital economy has been accelerated, which has provided a strong impetus for the sustained and healthy development of the economy and society and effectively exerted the potential to boost prosperity.
The Path of Digital Economy Promoting "Richness" and Economic Growth
First, the digital economy has significantly improved the circulation efficiency. Based on big data and artificial intelligence algorithms, e-commerce significantly reduces the search cost of goods and services, thus meeting the needs of buyers more efficiently. China's online retail sales have reached 25% of the total retail sales of social consumer goods, and this proportion still has room to continue to rise, which will affect the economic operation and the daily life of urban and rural residents to a greater extent. E-commerce market has developed into the largest and most complex diversified comprehensive market in human history, which has promoted the all-round changes in consumption and circulation technology, format, mode and organization, expanded circulation channels, optimized circulation links, stimulated consumers' demand for quick response, improved convenience, accessibility, timeliness, accuracy and cost performance of consumption, and comprehensively deepened the division of labor in procurement, wholesale, retail, logistics, marketing and brand.
Second, the digital economy has significantly improved production efficiency. Personalized, fragmented and high-frequency consumer demand is constantly emerging, which puts higher demands on the ability of manufacturing enterprises to accurately capture market demand and elastic demand response, while the traditional supply chain management model of manufacturing enterprises lacks the necessary flexibility and elasticity. Under the above background, some platforms make full use of the big data on the consumer side, fully tap the data analysis ability (such as more accurately depicting customer portraits), and help manufacturing enterprises to realize the integration of ERP, MES and CRM by cooperating with the data of manufacturing enterprises, and explore the "new manufacturing" mode represented by C2B and C2M. In this way, the platform can more accurately convey consumers' personalized needs and real-time changing trends to manufacturers, at the same time attract consumers to join the design process, and empower manufacturing enterprises in channel reform, precise research and development, brand promotion and other aspects. , and promote the real-time sharing of information among relevant entities in the supply chain, comprehensively improve the adaptability of supply and demand, and improve the overall efficiency of the supply chain.
Third, the digital economy has comprehensively expanded the market scope. On the one hand, a number of new formats, new models, new enterprises and new industries have emerged around platform enterprises, forming a dynamic and complex digital ecosystem, and finally achieving a virtuous circle of market expansion and deepening division of labor. On the other hand, due to the "long tail effect" and more accurate matching mechanism, the potential market that was not active or even existed before has become a market where the digital economy can serve and grow. For example, many "rare" goods or so-called "long tail goods" can be bought on e-commerce platforms, such as the fast-growing market that is difficult to grow due to trust (such as mobile payment).
Fourth, digital technology has significantly improved the business environment. In recent years, all localities have accelerated the construction of digital government, and the efficiency of comprehensive government services and supervision has been significantly improved. New service models such as "run once at most", "run through one network", "run through one network" and "cooperate with one network" have been widely promoted, the networked, digital and intelligent business environment has been continuously optimized, and the level of online government services has been steadily improved.
The Potential of Digital Economy in Promoting Similarity and Inclusion
First, the digital economy is more friendly to the entrepreneurial development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Digital economy, especially the digital ecosystem spawned by platform economy, is conducive to the creation and growth of small and medium-sized enterprises. If supervision is in place, it is possible to achieve a virtuous circle of rapid expansion of platform enterprises and prosperity and development of small and medium-sized enterprises. The platform economy has low requirements for capital and digital skills of settled enterprises, which can attract a large number of small, medium and micro enterprises and start-ups to participate. Many enterprises are enterprises or self-employed in remote areas, underdeveloped areas and rural areas. Digital ecosystem develops a large number of complementary resources (including training, logistics, design, agency operation, etc. ), but also promoted the establishment of new enterprises and the expansion of enterprise scale. The real interest rate in the global capital market continues to decrease, and major developed economies also implement quantitative easing policies, allowing platform enterprises to continuously carry out multiple rounds of low-cost financing (including angel investment and different rounds of venture capital) from the capital market, so that they can adopt the strategy of continuously opening stores for free or even subsidizing, give full play to the cross-network effect and winner-takes-all effect, and further reduce the establishment and operating costs of settled enterprises.
Second, the employment mode of the digital economy is more inclusive. Under the background of digital economy, the labor force is generally "surplus", and some groups yearn for free, flexible and flexible part-time jobs (or may be forced), which leads to the continuous growth of platform flexible employment or part-time labor supply. The rapid growth of "flexible employees" such as "riders" or "running errands" has formed positive feedback with the rapid expansion of take-away platforms and express delivery companies such as Meituan. The platform also attracts a large number of online car drivers, online training part-time teachers, online diagnosis and treatment part-time doctors, live broadcast part-time workers and part-time professional and technical personnel. Through the network platform and outsourcing, some flexible employees or part-time employees can better arrange their working hours and places, and can provide various services such as distribution, training, translation, design and customer service for many enterprises.
Third, the digital economy is conducive to promoting the equalization of public services. The construction and application of new infrastructure such as new network, data platform, digital government and digital society, and the construction of digital villages will enable urban and rural residents to enjoy high-quality public and government services based on information technologies such as Internet, big data and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, it also helps to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural areas, regions and departments, promote the equalization of public services between urban and rural areas and regions to a certain extent, and effectively enhance the "sense of gain" of urban and rural residents.
Policy measures to promote the prosperity of digital economy more efficiently.
The development of digital economy still faces some basic challenges, which affect the further development of its potential to promote prosperity. For example, the digital divide tends to widen further, and the governance system of the digital economy also has many defects. Some platform companies are suspected of abusing market power (including forced "two choices" and excessive subsidies), abusing big data and abusing artificial intelligence algorithms.
In order to further develop the potential of the digital economy to boost prosperity, we should bridge the digital gap between urban and rural areas, regions and groups as soon as possible through measures such as aging of software and hardware, and prevent the elderly, the disabled and residents in underdeveloped areas from becoming marginalized "digital refugees"; We should explore and improve the labor rights protection mechanism for employees in new formats such as courier brother and network car driver; We should explore the formation of a more perfect digital economy governance pattern based on universal access, diversified participation, public-private cooperation and legal protection, including better protecting consumers' privacy and data security, and establishing a more scientific and rigorous anti-monopoly policy and legal system for platform economy, so as to promote open, fair and transparent competition in the digital market and ensure the healthy and sustainable development of the digital economy.
(The writer is Xu Zhenyu, a professor at the School of Statistics and Data Science of Nanjing Audit University, vice president of the Institute of Statistics and Big Data of Jiangsu Provincial Government, and an expert on domestic trade circulation of the Economic and Trade Policy Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Commerce. )