The world rightly considers China as an important power broker in economic and technology development. As China nears the end of their 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2011-2015) and formulates its 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) – scheduled to be unveiled in March 2016 ‐ early proposals outline China’s development priorities:
* Economic development: focus on economic development at all levels
* Address two weak links: the imbalance of development between ethnic groups and between regions
* Establish three new stances: new concepts, new approaches and new measures
* Develop four key regions: “One Belt, One Road”, Yangtze River Economic Belt, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and Northeast region
* Follow the five principles of development: innovation, co-ordination, greenness, openness, and sharing
* Implement 11 development strategies: Cyber expansion strategy; National big data strategy; Innovation-driven development strategy; Civil-military integration strategy; Win-win open strategy; Strategy of accelerated FTZ development; Strategy of giving to,p priority to employment; Food safety strategy; Strategy of prioritizing the training of competent personnel; Talent development strategy. and National security strategy.
According to Kitty Fok, MD of IDC China: “As China’s economy continues its ‘New Normal’ phase, the 13th Five-year Plan reinforces growth with the five principles of innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing. These principles lay a solid foundation for China&squo;s economic development and shape the direction of China’s ICT markets.”
“Digital transformation will accelerate across industries in China. Multinational and domestic ICT vendors and buyers must adjust their business and technology strategies in this context.”
Compared to the 12th Five-Year Plan, the 13th Five-Year Plan has a greater emphasis on steady economic development, innovation-driven development, and cooperative and collaborative development. In addition, it introduces the cyber expansion strategy and the national big data strategy, and draws attention to agricultural modernisation, ecological civilization and poverty alleviation through development.
IDC China summarises the China ICT industry development with 10 keywords:
* Infrastructure: the foundation of economic growth is ICT infrastructure development at the national, regional, local, enterprise and vast consumer level.
* Made in China 2025: the upgrade of China’s manufacturing industry, with robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), next-gen ERM solutions, and intelligent products and services.
* Modern Service Industry: an effective tool to alleviate employment pressure, with ICT opportunities concentrated in the small and medium enterprise (SME) market.
* Agricultural Modernisation: the cornerstone of food security and a pillar of agricultural industrialization, with IoT, ecommerce systems and integrated management systems.
* Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection: a pillar of sustainable development, with environmental monitoring and management systems.
* Internet+: mass entrepreneurship focused on enterprise digitalization and cloud-based sharing solutions, mobility and devices.
* Big Data: a powerful engine of innovation-driven development for consulting services, big data cloud platforms, and big data and analytics software.
* Smart Cities: driving modern urbanization and competitiveness, focused on city cloud platforms, big data and analytics, and solutions for industry segmsents.
* Globalisation: integration with the world economy to strengthen Chinese enterprises’ competitiveness, with multinational ICT vendors adopting six models of transformation.
* Security and Controllability: the cornerstone of national security and a measure to improve local technological competitiveness through ICT infrastructure upgrades and greater transparency.
According to Wu Lianfeng, vice-president and chief analyst of IDC China: “Maintaining stable growth is the basis, promoting reform is the safeguard, adjusting structure is the direction, fighting corruption is the support, benefiting livelihood is the foundation, and preventing risk is the bottom line. The 13th Five-Year Plan lays the foundation for the implementation of the ‘Four Comprehensives’ ‐ Comprehensive development of a prosperous society, Comprehensive deep reform, Comprehensive rule of law, and Comprehensive enforcement of discipline.
“ICT vendors and buyers are advised to incorporate these trends in their growth strategies in order to capture the massive opportunities presented by China’s economic and industry transformation.”
