Photo: Courtesy of Tsinghua PBCSF

 
Digital economy has been facilitating industries’ production resumption and aiding employment. It has witnessed steadily positive growth over the past year, and will keep injecting momentum to boost the global economic recovery in post-COVID era, experts said at the Tsinghua PBCSF Global Finance Forum.
 
Amid the hard-won growth of Chinese economy in 2020, digital economy has become an important driving force of the macro economy, registered an expansion at about 10 percent last year.
 
To look at in the future, Zhang Xiaoyan, deputy dean of Tsinghua National Institute of Financial Research, said at the forum that cultivating an ecosystem centered on digitalization is needed for the country to pursue a stable, sustainable and balanced growth pattern.
 
In the ecosystem, governments are expected to inject fresh impetus into infrastructures and other facilities, as market regulators will step up effective supervision for the digital sector, Zhang said.
 
As for companies, they can seek upgrades or transformation through the ecosystem; and residents can also share in the benefits of the digital economy with much better employment opportunities and higher incomes, Zhang said.

In addition to accelerating businesses’ digital transformation, Zhang pointed out an important business sector of Fintech enterprises which could facilitate other sectors to enter the digital economy ecosystem.
 
Fintech enterprises need to be very clear about where they fit into the economy, said Ye Wei, CEO of 58 Digital Tech.
 
Ye noted that it would be wrong if Fintech companies viewing themselves as competitors with traditional financial companies. 

“Digitally-driven economy generates a broad range of rosy opportunities; however, massive wealth has been concentrated in a handful of countries, companies, or a small number of people, bringing in huge challenges for policymakers to set up proper supervision mechanism to reduce wealth gap which undermines the development of digital economy,” Ye said.
 
According to China Academy of Information and Communication Technology, China’s digital economy is forecasted to reach 60 trillion yuan ($9.3 trillion) in output value. Though there are challenges facing the industry, the prospect of digital economy in China, as well as across the world, is promising, and it is expected to boost global recovery during the post-COVID era, experts noted.

Global Times