Beijing to enact regulations to beef up digital economy

BEIJING -- Beijing will enact a set of regulations to protect the development of the digital economy from Jan 1, 2023, according to local authorities on Friday.

The rules, adopted at a municipal legislature meeting, will give emphasis to stepping up the construction of digital economy infrastructure, beefing up basic research, tackling core difficulties with technology, and accelerating the transformation and upgrading of industrial digitalization, said Wang Lei, deputy head of the municipal bureau of economy and information technology.

In the first three quarters of the year, the added value of Beijing's digital economy totaled 1.28 trillion yuan (about $179.4 billion), up 3.9 percent year on year. It accounted for approximately 42.7 percent of the city's total output value.

Efforts will be made to cultivate core sectors of the digital economy, including high-end chips, industrial software, artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing, Wang said.

The rules will also support the development of the internet in fields such as finance, medical care and education, Wang added.