On November 17, the 3rd China-Europe Digital Economy Forum of Word Internet Conference sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce was held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang. China and Europe had communications and discussions on cooperation policies, fields and patterns of digital economy. Vice Minister of Commerce Fang Aiqing attended the forum and made the keynote speech.

Fang Aiqing noted the theme of the forum was to implement the “four principles” and “five propositions” of constructing the Fate Community of cyber space, and promote the implementation of related consensus and achievements of G20 Hangzhou Summit and of Chinese and European leaders. In recent years, China’s digital economy enjoyed a rapid development. Firstly, the growth was accelerated. In the past five years, the trading volume of China’s e-commerce witnessed an annual growth rate of over 35%, and online retail ranked top 1 in the world for 3 years in a row. Secondly, the coverage was wide. Digital economy was penetrating into all links of production, circulation and consumption, and was applied to the supply chain, industrial chain and value chain. It has deeply integrated into the primary industry, the secondary industry and the tertiary industry. Thirdly, the modes were innovated and diversified. The digital economy promoted the innovation and reform of the traditional industries, and new business modes like interaction and integration of online and offline and cross-border e-commerce have become hotspot of market innovation. Fourthly, the environment was gradually standardized. The environment for open, standardized, honest and safe online transaction and digital economy development was formed gradually. Fifthly, the development potential was great. Infrastructure for information technologies was optimized, and the innovation capability was strengthened. The popularity of the internet grew rapidly with the number of netizen of China exceeding 710 million.

Fang Aiqing said that the initiative of “Belt and Road” proposed by President Xi Jinping offered new opportunities to China-Europe Cooperation in the field of digital economy, in which China and Europe shared solid foundation and complementary advantages. As important economies in the world, China and Europe have many consensuses in developing digital economy.

Fang Aiqing said that China hopes to share the development experience with Europe, and carry out digital economy cooperation in key fields like internet infrastructure, big data, clout computing, internet of things and artificial intelligence, so as to release development potential, create development environment, constructing a peaceful, safe, open and cooperative cyber space, and jointly promote the construction of international rule system of digital economy.

Governmental representatives from China, France, Italy and EU, and enterprises guests from Nokia, Alibaba, SAP and Lenovo had active communications. They highly acknowledged the importance and great potential of digital economy in China-Europe economic and trade cooperation which they provided suggestions to explore. There were more than 200 participants of the forum.