China Determined to Increase Digital Economy Share by 2026
JAKARTA - The Chinese government is determined to increase the role of digital economy in its country's economy so that it contributes up to 12.5 percent of China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2026.
"We will continue to deepen development in various fields of digital economy and make further progress in advancing the China Digital Initiative so that there is an increase in the added value of the digital economy industry to 12.5 percent of GDP," said Prime Minister Li Qiang at the opening of the Chinese National People's Congress (NPC) in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, China on Thursday, March 5, reported ANTARA.
The NPC session is part of a "Two Sessions" session that combines the NPC session and the advisory body of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) which took place in Beijing on March 4-12, 2026. One of the agendas of the "Two Sessions" session is to approve China's revenue and expenditure budget which is targeted at 30.01 trillion RMB (about Rp73.5 trillion).
In the report on the implementation of China's 2025 development and 2026 development plans shared at the meeting, it was mentioned that the Chinese government had budgeted 200 billion RMB from special government bonds to finance large-scale technology projects.
The government is said to promote inclusive services supported by "kloudification", "big data", artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives, and increase support for small and medium-sized businesses undergoing digital transformation, including supporting "smart supply chains" to improve technology-based manufacturing industries.
Furthermore, the government will grow new AI-based business models, launch smart computing cluster infrastructure projects, and 5G industrial internet initiatives.
The goal is to expand the market for service sectors in China such as financial services, modern logistics, intellectual property rights and other service sectors.
It is recorded that the total budget for research and development (RnD) in the fields of artificial intelligence, robotics to quantum technology reaches 2.8 percent of China's GDP.
The report also states that industrial robot production rose 28 percent to 773 thousand units throughout 2025 while the number of registered unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) also increased by 56.6 percent with a total cumulative drone flight reaching 45.3 million hours last year.
China is also developing space infrastructure and large-scale new energy systems in the polar region, namely at the Qinling Station, Antarctica, to study energy innovation projects, namely hydrogen energy, energy storage and next-generation batteries.
As for the 5G internet network, the Chinese government claims that there are already 238 million users with 4.8 million 5G base stations so that 95 percent of villages in China are already covered by the 5G network.