The Integration of Digital and Real Economies Boosts High-Quality Development

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out, “Promote the deep integration of digital technology with the real economy, empower the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, foster new industries, new business forms and new models, and continuously strengthen, improve and expand China’s digital economy.” [1]1 Xi Jinping, “Speech at the 34th Collective Study Session of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee,” October 18, 2021. The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC [2]2 The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in October 2022. emphasized accelerating the development of the digital economy, promoting the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, and building internationally competitive digital industry clusters. On the new journey of the New Era, [3]3 The New Era refers to the period since the 19th National Congress of the CPC in 2017, marked by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. it is necessary to thoroughly study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourse on developing the digital economy, seize the new opportunities of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, promote the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, and better assist high-quality economic development.

习近平总书记指出，“促进数字技术与实体经济深度融合，赋能传统产业转型升级，催生新产业新业态新模式，不断做强做优做大我国数字经济”。党的二十大报告强调，加快发展数字经济，促进数字经济和实体经济深度融合，打造具有国际竞争力的数字产业集群。新时代新征程，要深入学习贯彻习近平总书记关于发展数字经济的重要论述，把握新一轮科技革命和产业变革新机遇，促进数字经济和实体经济深度融合，更好助力经济高质量发展。

The integration of the digital economy and the real economy mainly refers to the digitization of industries, especially the digitization of agriculture, industry and producer services. The meaning of deep integration mainly refers to the penetration and diffusion of industrial digitization from points, lines and surfaces to the entire ecosystem and entire industrial chain. In other words, it develops from the digital transformation of a small number of large and medium-sized实体 enterprises to the digital transformation of the majority of实体 enterprises, including small and medium-sized enterprises. The essence of the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy is to apply a new generation of digital technology to transform traditional industries in an all-round, all-angle and all-chain manner. The process of integrating the digital economy and the real economy is not only a process in which digital technology continuously penetrates and integrates into the R&D, production, sales and circulation links of the real economy, innovates production methods and business models, reshapes industrial organizational forms and manufacturing processes, promotes the continuous improvement of total factor productivity, and cultivates new business forms and models; it is also a process in which digital technology, driven by specific demand scenarios, continuously iterates and evolves, even giving rise to adaptive technologies and corresponding industrial sectors.

数字经济和实体经济融合，主要是指产业数字化，特别是农业、工业和生产性服务业的数字化。深度融合的含义，主要是指产业数字化从点线面向全生态、全产业链渗透和扩散。或者说，由少数大中型实体企业的数字化改造向包括中小企业在内的大多数实体企业的数字化改造发展。数字经济和实体经济深度融合的本质是应用新一代数字科技，对传统产业进行全方位、全角度、全链条的改造。数字经济和实体经济融合的过程，既是数字技术不断向实体经济的研发、生产、销售、流通环节渗透融合，创新生产方式和商业模式，重塑产业组织形态与制造流程，推动全要素生产率持续提升以及培育新业态新模式的过程，也是数字技术受特定需求场景拉动，不断迭代演进甚至萌生出适应性技术和相应产业部门的过程。

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out, “The digital economy is highly innovative, strongly penetrating and widely covering. It is not only a new economic growth point but also a fulcrum for transforming and upgrading traditional industries, and can become an important engine for building a modernized economic system.” [4]4 Xi Jinping, “Speech at the 34th Collective Study Session of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee,” October 18, 2021. Vigorously promoting the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy is an inevitable requirement for building a modern industrial system, an important pathway for constructing a new development pattern, and a strategic choice for forging new advantages in international competition. Only by forming a modernized economic system can we better conform to the trend of modernization development, win the initiative in international competition, and provide strong support for modernization in other fields.

习近平总书记指出，“数字经济具有高创新性、强渗透性、广覆盖性，不仅是新的经济增长点，而且是改造提升传统产业的支点，可以成为构建现代化经济体系的重要引擎”。大力推动数字经济和实体经济深度融合，是建设现代化产业体系的必然要求，是构建新发展格局的重要途径，是打造国际竞争新优势的战略选择。只有形成现代化经济体系，才能更好顺应现代化发展潮流和赢得国际竞争主动，并为其他领域现代化提供有力支撑。

To achieve high-quality development, it is necessary to build a modernized economic system. It is necessary to build an industrial system that is innovation-led and synergistically developed, a market system that is unified, open, orderly and competitive, an income distribution system that reflects efficiency and promotes fairness, an urban-rural regional development system that highlights advantages and coordinates linkages, a green development system that is resource-saving and environmentally friendly, a comprehensive opening-up system that is diversified, balanced, safe and efficient, and an economic system that gives full play to the role of the market and better plays the role of the government. Through integrated construction and integrated promotion, we can achieve unimpeded economic circulation. Promoting the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy is one of the core contents of building a modern industrial system and an important task for promoting high-quality development and accelerating the formation of a new development pattern. In the current era, digital technology, as a leading force in the world’s technological revolution and industrial transformation, is increasingly integrated into all fields and processes of economic and social development, profoundly changing production methods, lifestyles and social governance methods. Achieving the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy is an important driving force for China’s high-quality economic development. Looking to the future, it is necessary to accelerate the market-oriented construction of data elements, coordinate the promotion of digital industrialization and industrial digitization from aspects such as new infrastructure guarantees, strengthening key core technology breakthroughs, providing investment and financing support, strengthening demonstration and leadership, and providing talent guarantees, promote the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy, and inject strong momentum into high-quality development.

实现高质量发展，必须建设现代化经济体系。要建设创新引领、协同发展的产业体系，统一开放、竞争有序的市场体系，体现效率、促进公平的收入分配体系，彰显优势、协调联动的城乡区域发展体系，资源节约、环境友好的绿色发展体系，多元平衡、安全高效的全面开放体系，充分发挥市场作用、更好发挥政府作用的经济体制。通过一体建设、一体推进，实现经济循环畅通无阻。促进数字经济和实体经济深度融合是建设现代化产业体系的核心内容之一，是推动高质量发展、加快形成新发展格局的重要任务。当今时代，数字技术作为世界科技革命和产业变革的先导力量，日益融入经济社会发展各领域全过程，深刻改变着生产方式、生活方式和社会治理方式。实现数字经济和实体经济的深度融合，是我国经济高质量发展的重要动力所在。面向未来，要加快推进数据要素市场化建设，从新型基础设施保障、加强关键核心技术攻关、提供投融资支持、强化示范引领、提供人才保障等方面协同推进数字产业化和产业数字化，促进数字技术与实体经济深度融合，为高质量发展注入强劲动能。

The integration of digital and real economies has multi-dimensionality. At the enterprise level, the integration of digital and real economies is generally regarded as a process of digital transformation, that is, a process of using digital technology to create new products, new processes and new models. Reducing costs, improving efficiency and increasing revenue are the key to measuring the effectiveness of enterprise digital-real integration development. At the industrial level, the integration of digital and real economies is concentrated in the evolution of the industrial characteristics of manufacturing and service industries, and promotes the “integration of two industries” of advanced manufacturing and modern service industries. Among them, in the manufacturing field, the integration of digital and real economies will produce new-type实体 enterprises; the integration of a new generation of digital technology with manufacturing empowers intelligent manufacturing through cost savings, efficiency improvements and value recreation. In the service industry field, the integration of digital and real economies will make characteristics such as tradability, which manufacturing possesses, become characteristics of more and more service industries. With the development of the integration of digital and real economies, the service industry will play an increasingly important role in the value creation and value realization process of manufacturing, while manufacturing will provide the service industry with more and more changing application scenarios and an indispensable digital equipment foundation.

数实融合具有多维性。在企业层面上，数实融合被普遍视为数字化转型过程，即利用数字技术创造新产品、新流程、新模式的过程。降成本、提效率、增收益是衡量企业数实融合发展成效的关键。在产业层面上，数实融合集中体现在制造业和服务业的产业特征演进上，并促使先进制造业和现代服务业“两业融合”。其中，在制造业领域，数实融合会产生新型实体企业，新一代数字技术与制造业融合，通过成本节约、效率提升、价值再造赋能智能制造；在服务业领域，数实融合将使制造业具有的可贸易性等特征成为越来越多服务业的特征。随着数实融合发展，服务业将在制造业价值创造和价值实现过程中发挥日益重要的作用，制造业则为服务业提供更多不断变化的应用场景和不可或缺的数字设备基础。

The key factor in the integration of digital and real economies is data. Data infrastructure and data governance systems have obvious positive externalities. To enable data to transform from a resource to a factor and stimulate the synergistic effect between the “digital” and “real” sectors, it is necessary to solve the insufficient supply of effective data and infrastructure through appropriate institutional innovation, clarify the property rights attributes of data, build a data security supervision system, and innovate the investment and financing system for data infrastructure. At the same time, at the enterprise level and the industrial level, the institutional conditions required for the integration of digital and real economies are not the same, and differentiated and targeted policy supply needs to be provided. At the enterprise level, the integration of digital and real economies must continue to expand and form new production methods, so that economic entities obtain sufficient incentives. This incentive is mainly achieved through two different pathways: first, enterprises actively introduce general-purpose technologies to improve productivity, optimize enterprise performance, and enable enterprises to obtain higher competitiveness and excess profits; second, through changes in the economic environment and technological conditions, enterprises comply with new techno-economic paradigms and effectively embed themselves in new technological systems. Here, the effective combination of competition policy and innovation policy is crucial. At the industrial level, the integration of digital and real economies can be understood as departmental synergy, and institutional guidance should be committed to promoting the formation of several positive feedback or mutual incentive growth mechanisms, continuously reducing factor costs.

数实融合的关键因素是数据。数据基础设施、数据治理体系具有明显的正外部性，要使数据实现从资源到要素的转换，激发“数”“实”部门间的协同效应，需要通过适宜的制度创新解决有效数据、基础设施等方面的供给不足，明确数据产权属性，构建数据安全监管体系，创新数据基础设施的投融资体系等。与此同时，在企业层面和产业层面上，数实融合所需的制度条件不尽相同，需要提供差异性和针对性的政策供给。在企业层面上，数实融合要持续拓展且形成新的生产方式，使经济主体获得足够激励。这种激励主要通过两种不同的途径：一是企业通过主动引进通用技术来提高生产率，优化企业绩效，使企业获得更高的竞争力和超额利润；二是通过经济环境和技术条件的改变，使企业遵从新的技术经济范式，并有效嵌入新的技术体系中。在这里，竞争政策和创新政策的有效结合至关重要。在产业层面上，数实融合可以理解为部门协同，制度引导应致力于促进形成若干正反馈或互激式增长机制，不断降低要素成本。

Currently, the breadth and depth of China’s integration of digital and real economies are continuously expanding. On the one hand, the process of digital-real integration is rapid. In 2022, the scale of China’s digital industrialization and industrial digitization reached 9.2 trillion yuan and 41 trillion yuan respectively, accounting for 18.3% and 81.7% of the digital economy. On the other hand, as the “world’s factory,” China has advantages in economies of scale, data volume and rich scenarios. The integration of digital and real economies is prone to forming superposition effects, aggregation effects and multiplier effects, and the potential for industrial digitization is huge. This is the strong driving force and significant advantage of China’s digital-real integration.

当前，我国数实融合的广度深度正在持续拓展。一方面，数实融合进程迅速。2022年，我国数字产业化规模与产业数字化规模分别达到9.2万亿元和41万亿元，占数字经济比重分别为18.3%和81.7%。另一方面，作为“世界工厂”，我国有规模经济优势、数据体量优势和场景丰富优势，数实融合易于形成叠加效应、聚合效应和倍增效应，产业数字化潜力巨大，这是我国数实融合的强大动力和显著优势。

However, it must also be noted that there are still some problems and shortcomings in China’s development of digital-real integration. For example, industries are large but not strong, core technologies in some areas are controlled by others, the role of digital technology in leading high-quality development has yet to be fully realized, and the value potential of data elements has not yet been effectively activated. Along with the accelerated breakthrough and application of disruptive frontier technologies such as general artificial intelligence and quantum information, digital technology is entering an innovation explosion period, integrating with thousands of industries and expanding in depth, and international competition in the field of digital-real integration is also becoming increasingly fierce. Doing a good job on the major topic of digital-real integration has become an urgent requirement for promoting high-quality development.

也要看到，我国数实融合发展还存在一些问题和不足。例如，产业大而不强、一些领域核心技术受制于人、数字技术引领高质量发展的作用仍有待发挥、数据要素价值潜力尚未有效激活等。伴随着通用人工智能、量子信息等颠覆性前沿技术加速突破应用，数字技术正进入创新爆发期，与千行百业融合向纵深拓展，数实融合领域国际竞争也日趋激烈。做好数实融合大文章，已成为推动高质量发展的迫切要求。

Core technologies and products in the digital age have two key characteristics: first, there are complex inter-nesting and inter-dependence relationships in the complex division of labor process; second, only enterprises with international competitiveness can effectively embed themselves in the international division of labor system. This means that to solve the “bottleneck” problem, [5]5 “Bottleneck” (卡脖子) is a Chinese term for technological dependencies that leave key industries vulnerable to external pressure. it is necessary to take internationally competitive enterprises as the lead, achieve an irreplaceable position at important division nodes in the midstream of key technologies and products, transform traditional advantages in scale and diversity into international competitiveness advantages in industries and products, build corresponding internationally competitive enterprise entities, and thereby obtain high added value while improving security, providing an important guarantee for the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy.

数字时代的核心技术和产品具有两个关键特征：一是在复杂的分工过程中存在复杂的相互嵌套、相互依赖关系；二是具有国际竞争力的企业才可能有效嵌入国际分工体系。这就意味着，要解决“卡脖子”问题，应以具有国际竞争力的企业为主导，在关键技术和产品上中游的重要分工节点取得不可替代的地位，将传统意义上的规模优势、多样性优势转化为行业、产品的国际竞争力优势，打造与之对应的具有国际竞争力的企业主体，进而在提高安全度的同时获得高附加值，为数字经济和实体经济深度融合提供重要保障。

General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed, “Vigorously promote the modernization of industrial and supply chains, continue to implement actions to enhance the core competitiveness of manufacturing, cultivate and strengthen advanced manufacturing, accelerate the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, and promote the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy.” [6]6 This quotation is from Xi Jinping’s remarks at the 11th meeting of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, held on March 15, 2021, which focused on promoting the modernization of industrial and supply chains. Elevating the modernization level of industrial and supply chains is key to sustaining high-quality development. It is essential to fully grasp the new trends in the integrated development of the digital economy and the real economy, seize the new opportunities emerging in the process of adjusting global industrial structures and layouts, and explore new pathways for integrating the digital economy and the real economy, thereby strengthening the foundation and adding vitality to high-quality development.

习近平总书记强调，“大力推动产业链供应链现代化，接续实施增强制造业核心竞争力行动，培育壮大先进制造业，加快发展战略性新兴产业和未来产业，促进数字经济和实体经济深度融合”。提升产业链供应链现代化水平，是持续推动高质量发展的关键。要充分把握数字经济和实体经济融合发展的新趋势，抓住全球产业结构和布局调整过程中孕育的新机遇，探索数字经济和实体经济融合新路径，为高质量发展强根基、添活力。

Online editor: Zhang Fujun

网络编辑：张福军