In March 2016, the Laos-1 satellite successfully launched in xichang satellite launch center, China was delivered in orbit. This is the first commercial satellite exported by China to ASEAN countries. The picture shows the panorama of Laos No.1 communication satellite ground station located in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. People’s vision
Data source: Ali Research Institute, National Bureau of Statistics, General Administration of Customs, AliExpress, Tianmao International and Global Purchase Data Analysis.
Wan Li Silk Road, connecting the East and the West, spans the past and the present. The Chairman of the Supreme Leader proposed to build the Belt and Road into a road of peace, prosperity, openness, innovation and civilization. Among them, the significance of innovation lies in insisting on innovation-driven development and advocating green, low-carbon, circular and sustainable production and lifestyle. The development of the digital economy will promote the social development of countries related to the Belt and Road Initiative to be more efficient, intelligent and humanized, and will certainly create new opportunities for development, seek new impetus for development, expand new space for development, and benefit the world and the people.
Mobile Internet — —
Digital economy enters the era of big data.
Based on the core indicators of digital economy development, it can be found that the countries along the "Belt and Road" are obviously unbalanced in the development of digital economy. Among them, there are countries like Israel, Estonia and Singapore that are at the forefront of the world, and many countries are still underdeveloped.
In recent ten years, some countries, including China, India, United Arab Emirates, Israel and Poland, have made remarkable achievements in digital infrastructure, e-commerce, network governance and other aspects by formulating far-sighted digital economy development strategies, and their growth rate has obviously exceeded that of developed countries, showing great potential and vitality.
Mobile broadband is the foundation of economic activities such as Internet of Things, autonomous driving and intelligent manufacturing, and represents the development of a new round of intelligent infrastructure of digital economy. Its penetration level can best reflect the digital economic foundation of an economy. In recent years, the mobile Internet has empowered individual consumers, made globalization and large-scale collaboration possible, and directly promoted the so-called "big data torrent". The development of digital economy has entered the era of big data. Globally, this indicator has reached nearly 50% in 2016 from less than 20% in 2011, and the development speed is amazing.
The widespread penetration of mobile Internet has fundamentally changed the business model of enterprises and the way of personal life and consumption. The most striking things are the rise of sharing economy based on extensive participation of users, diversification of working scenes and intelligent equipment, which have driven a new round of blowout development of e-commerce in various countries. This is reflected in the e-commerce development indicators of countries along the "Belt and Road". The index of "B2C e-commerce development" constructed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is composed of the Internet user penetration rate, credit card payment share, logistics level and security server, which reflect the convenience of developing consumer-side e-commerce. From this indicator value, the national average along the Belt and Road Initiative is 49.0%, slightly higher than the world average of 47.2%.
Combined with the growth rate index of digital economy in recent years, we can find the unbalanced characteristics among countries along the Belt and Road. Some countries with relatively good foundations, such as Malaysia, Romania and China, have bright growth data, and the growth rate of digital economy is much higher than the global average. It can be expected that these countries will stand out and rise to a higher level of development in the next five years. However, in other countries with weak foundations, the growth level is almost at a standstill, which deserves attention.
Chinese enterprises go to sea — —
Share the development opportunity in the digital age
In 2016, the project and transaction volume of seven core infrastructure areas (public utilities, transportation, telecommunications, society, construction, energy and environment) in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative was about 494 billion US dollars. In the first quarter of 2017 alone, China enterprises increased their non-financial direct investment in countries related to the Belt and Road Initiative by a total of US$ 2.95 billion, accounting for 14.4% of the total foreign investment in the same period, up 5.4 percentage points from the same period last year. The Belt and Road Initiative has become the focus of China enterprises’ overseas investment.
In addition to the cooperation and co-construction of infrastructure, science and technology, commerce and culture are also the highlights of the "Belt and Road Initiative". With the rapid development of digital economy in China, China Internet companies with global vision and excellent strength have also shown a strong desire to "sail out to sea" in generate.
From the perspective of ability, the fierce domestic market competition environment and perfect infrastructure have forged a number of Internet enterprises with strong competitiveness. Its operation and innovation ability has gone beyond the simple imitation stage, and many local innovative products and services with international competitiveness have emerged, such as super program, mobile payment, bike-sharing and so on.
From the perspective of willingness, the competition in the domestic market is becoming increasingly fierce, and expanding the international market has become an inevitable choice for Internet companies in China. The "One Belt, One Road" initiative has pointed out the direction for China Internet companies to build and share the digital economy dividend on a global scale with the advantages of local innovation. Geographical and cultural proximity also makes the countries along the Belt and Road become the yearning places for Internet companies in China.
It should be noted that countries along the "Belt and Road" have a large number of factor endowments that have not been fully optimized, and they urgently need Internet dividends to improve the overall efficiency of resource allocation, increase employment through large-scale investment, and improve people’s living standards.
Alibaba, Huawei, Meitu, etc. are quite representative enterprises among them.
Take Alibaba as an example. Countries along the Belt and Road have become the focus of its strategic development. The company plans to establish several digital free trade zones to create a global "Digital Silk Road". In order to achieve this goal, Alibaba is committed to transplanting the mature e-commerce environment in China to relevant countries from e-commerce, payment means and logistics.
In 2014, Alibaba invested US$ 249 million in Singapore Post. Cainiao Logistics has deployed 17 overseas warehouses in countries along the Belt and Road. In 2016, it acquired Lazada, the largest e-commerce company in Southeast Asia, for US$ 1 billion, setting a single record for Alibaba’s overseas investment. Ant Financial invested in Ascend Money, a subsidiary of Thailand Zhengda Group, and also invested in the Indian version of "Alipay" Paytm, with a user scale of over 215 million.
With the help of the huge users and related data brought by e-commerce, Alibaba is also actively building data centers in Hongkong, Singapore, the Middle East and Europe through Alibaba Cloud, and setting up 14 regional nodes around the world. The self-developed large-scale computing operating system Feitian also goes out to sea together, connecting millions of servers all over the world into a supercomputer, and providing computing power for the society in the form of online public services.
Alibaba is just a microcosm of China enterprises’ deep participation in digital economy construction in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative. A large number of China enterprises such as Huawei, ZTE, Fiberhome, Xiaomi and Meitu have come one after another.
Up to now, Huawei’s overseas revenue accounts for more than 70%, and ZTE’s overseas revenue accounts for 50%. The global competitiveness of China telecom system equipment manufacturers has provided an important guarantee for the communication infrastructure construction of countries along the Belt and Road.
Take Huawei as an example. "Six or seven years ago, no one in Bulgaria knew about Huawei. Now it has become a household name, not only because of the popularity of Huawei mobile phones, but also because the network equipment and technology brought by Huawei have changed people’s lives." Aurelio Garic, senior account manager of Huawei Bulgarian Company, said in an interview with the media. This is not uncommon in many countries along the Belt and Road. China enterprises are doing their best to help promote the development and upgrading of local industries, and the business card of "China Zhizao" is getting louder and louder.
Intelligent terminal is also a major advantage of China Zhizao. Although Apple and Samsung still lead the global market, their market share adds up to only 1/3. In 2016, China enterprises accounted for more than 50% of global smartphone shipments. Among the top ten mobile phone companies in the world, China brand has occupied seven seats.
With the popularity of smart terminals, mobile phone applications have also become a new emerging field for Internet companies in China. Taking Meitu Xiu Xiu as an example, the self-portrait application "Beauty Camera" specially created for Indian users ranked first in the most popular application field of Google App Market in India in 2016. At the beginning of 2017, Meitu Xiu Xiu became popular overseas because of hand-painted selfies, ranking first in the total list of free mobile phone applications in eight countries and regions, including Russia, and ranking among the top ten in the total list of free mobile phone applications in 21 countries and regions around the world.
Data show that in 2016, China’s software industry exported 51.9 billion US dollars, up 5.8% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 4.1 percentage points higher than that in 2015. Internet technology enterprises in China, such as Zhuyun, Netlong, DJI Innovation and Daily Yoga, have all benefited from this.
The "going out to sea" practice of Internet enterprises in China has brought the latest technological innovation and model application to countries along the Belt and Road, and formed a good interaction with local governments, enterprises and people, which has contributed to the development of digital economy and the improvement of economic growth model in countries along the route. This is also the best practice of discussing, building and sharing ideas.
Digital change — —
New opportunities to bridge the digital divide
At present, countries along the "Belt and Road" are struggling to develop, and the ongoing digital economic transformation is a development opportunity that cannot be missed. Developed countries in Europe and America have successively formulated their own national digital strategies, which provide many experiences for the development of digital economy. Some international organizations, such as OECD and World Economic Forum, attach great importance to the agenda of digital economy and publish global development reports in this field every year.
Facing the reality, countries along the Belt and Road face multiple challenges in the development of digital economy, among which the biggest challenge can be summed up as how to create an environment conducive to digital innovation and entrepreneurship, thus bridging the gap with developed countries.
Increase budget, encourage competition and expand data sources. The government needs to increase the proportion of digital budget, encourage competition in the information and communication industry and expand the available data sources by strengthening investment in digitalization and various related infrastructure. Some countries with insufficient financial resources can use the co-construction platform under the framework of the "Belt and Road Initiative" to accelerate their development through cooperation with regional institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Regional cooperation, encouraging investment and industrial integration. Countries along the "Belt and Road" should further strengthen regional cooperation, open up on an equal footing, encourage foreign investment and the development of domestic small and medium-sized digital technology enterprises, and integrate into the global industrial chain. Encourage foreign-funded enterprises to invest digitally, whether focusing on digital infrastructure or digital business applications. By integrating into the global industrial chain, domestic enterprises can transfer the technological achievements of advanced countries and enhance their global competitiveness. In this regard, the government can support it through tax relief for research and development, export tax rebate and accelerated depreciation.
Digital transformation, model innovation, cross-border integration. Countries along the "Belt and Road" should encourage traditional enterprises to invest in the commercialization of digital technology, especially in the digital transformation of traditional industries, and quickly promote business model innovation, cross-border integration and digital economy development with wide application. In recent years, many emerging market countries have achieved rapid development by encouraging local enterprises to learn from and absorb foreign mature digital business models, and on this basis, carry out localized innovation. Driving the introduction and development of technology by application is an important way for developing countries to catch up.
People-oriented, digital education, improve literacy. Digital talents are the biggest source of competitiveness for a country. It is an extremely urgent task for countries along the Belt and Road to enhance the digital literacy of the whole people by strengthening digital education. In order to keep up with the times, it is necessary to integrate digital education into primary and secondary education as soon as possible, so that students can get in touch with computers and the Internet earlier to meet the challenges of the future society. For adults, the government should encourage the development of digital training institutions and encourage enterprises to carry out on-the-job training of digital talents.
The "One Belt, One Road" initiative is ambitious and ambitious. It will establish a brand-new cooperative relationship and sharing platform for relevant countries, and provide a historic opportunity for countries to meet the challenges of the digital age, promote the development of digital economy innovation, and achieve win-win and mutual benefit. (The authors are all from Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Wang Zhen, Zhao Fuchun and Wang Yibo)
