数字经济加速我国制造业恢复 - 2020-10-22

Sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic delivers a serious impact on the global economy. Attacked by the pandemic, the accumulative growth rate of value added of industries above designated size (enterprises with annual sales over RMB20 million) from January to February across China was -13.5%. With major strategic achievements of the nationwide battle against the pandemic, China is undergoing rapid economic recovery. China's GDP grew at 3.2% in the second quarter, the decline in value added of industries above designated size reduced to 1.1% in March 2020, and realized the positive growth of 3.9% in April. The value added of industries above designated size increased by 5.6% YoY, higher than 4.4% for the same period of the previous year. In the first eight months, the value added of industries above designated size has realized positive growth. Digital economy plays an important role in rapid economic recovery, in particular the manufacturing, in China.
Digital consumption drives recovery of electronic information industry. For the purpose of preventing and controlling the pandemic, it is required to keep social distance and reduce close contact, and thus a group of contactless jobs and life styles accordingly emerges, like online shopping, online entertainment, distance education, online fitness, telemedicine, and work-from-home, and stay-at-home economy and contactless economy gained explosive growth. To adapt to the changes in operating mode amid COVID-19 pandemic, enterprises scale up the investment in information infrastructure, and the online life style also increases the demands for smart terminals, thereby driving the growth of manufacturing of electronic information products. From January to February 2020, the added value of computer, telecommunication and other electronic information manufacturing industry decreased by 13.8% YoY, and returned to the growth of 9.9% in March, and recorded a cumulative growth rate by 7% in the first eight months, making it become the industry with the most rapid growth.
Big data provides market insight for manufacturing companies. E-commerce platforms, social networks and other internet-based platforms take possession of massive data covering user search, shopping, and comments, indicating the demand features and consumption tendency of consumers. The manufacturers may have more accurate understanding of user demands and changes by analyzing their own online sales data. Some manufacturers that are weak in e-commerce may obtain the shopping features of their consumers by cooperating with the internet companies to analyze big data. Relying on the market information obtained by analyzing big data, manufacturers can develop new products and arrange the production in a more pertinent and precise manner. Especially, some export manufacturers turned to domestic market when they suffer drastic contraction of export, but they have encountered huge difficulties because of knowing nothing about domestic market demands. Data insight through the internet platforms can help them develop the products marketable at domestic market.
New business patterns and modes drive the goods sales up. The pandemic prevention and control requirement of reducing unnecessary outings gives a huge impact on traditional offline sales channels, and physical stores suffer a severe contraction of the sales volume. Online sales channel strongly supports normal operation of goods sales activity because of its contactless sales feature, and the online retail sales presents a momentum of rapid growth. From January to August, the online retail sales of physical goods grew by 15.8%. Export manufacturers have no sales channels and experience at home, and rebuilding the sales network requires lots of time and money. Under such circumstances, shifting to e-commerce platforms can help them not only establish the online sales channels by employing the platforms' store creation tools and solutions, but also be free from limited coverage of offline sales channels, driving the expansion of domestic market. Amid the pandemic, live-stream shopping soared. Innovative forms of promotion and competitive price recommendation attracted a swarm of consumers, and became important channels for manufacturers.
Digital transformation supports sustainable production and development of the manufacturing. High automation and digitization do not require much labor force in the production line, thus meeting the pandemic prevention and control requirement of reducing or avoiding contact, and enabling the manufacturers to resume work and production rapidly. Also, manufacturers can organize the supply of spare parts according to the users' actual demands without contacting among the staff through the information-based platform, and schedule the production, transformation, and delivery of products. Robots and AI technologies make smart manufacturing more flexible so that manufacturers can rapidly shift to the production of materials in desperate need for pandemic control and prevention and products with increasing market demand.
Digital trading promotes the growth of goods export against the downturn general economy. COVID-19 dragged down the shifts of international flight and freighter sharply, seriously restricted international movements and created tremendous difficulties for the import and export trading. To carry out economic activities amid social distancing, internet companies successively launched all kinds of digital office and meeting tools. Online meeting, electronic contract and other digital means enable people to negotiate about and execute the contracts without meeting each other in person, thereby strongly supporting rapid recovery of goods export. Attacked by the pandemic, the export dived by 17.2% in accumulation from January to February, but this figure has recovered to the positive 7.2% growth in July, making the cumulative drop of export reduce to 4.1% in the first seven months.
The maturity and penetration of the new-generation information technology and its in-depth integration with other industries continuously create new products, modes, business patterns and industries, which becomes not only new growth driver, but also enhances the resilience of Chinese manufacturers to cope with severe epidemic and emergencies.
By Li Xiaohua, Research Fellow of Institute of Industrial Economics of CASS