Since Premier Li Keqiang took office, at least 15 topics regarding Internet Plus have been discussed at State Council executive meetings.

Premier Li stressed on many occasions that China should promote the new drivers of growth fostered by Internet Plus to create huge potential for a new industrial revolution.

New growth drivers fostered by Internet Plus

Internet Plus has covered a wide range of fields — including government services, advanced manufacturing, agriculture and healthcare — and played a role in people’s lives in a number of ways.

It provides both individuals and businesses with easy access to government services. It speeds up the building of an industrial internet. It promotes agricultural improvements and increased income for farmers through the development of rural e-commerce. It has also popularized medical service models such as telemedicine, online appointment and day surgery, and facilitated the sharing of medical information among healthcare institutions.

In addition, online learning and education platforms are enabled by big data. Promoting Internet Plus logistics can develop the new economy while upgrading the traditional economy.

By integrating the internet with transportation as well as Food and Drug Administration, more convenient transportation services are offered and online smart supervision is achieved.

Measures to support internet Plus

A slew of measures have been taken to cultivate new drivers of growth from Internet Plus. For instance, the government has introduced policies to facilitate faster and more affordable internet connections, canceled policies hindering the development of Internet Plus, and built open and sharing platforms.

It has also implemented the Broadband China strategy to ensure more than 98 percent of administrative villages have access to broadband internet by 2020, as well as the New Hardware project to develop next-generation information technology infrastructure.

Given the features of Internet Plus, efforts have been made to increase government purchases of cloud computing services, encourage innovation in credit products and services, launch equity crowdfunding pilot programs, and support internet startups in going public.

In 2016, China’s digital economy reached 22.58 trillion yuan (about $3.4 trillion), ranking second globally and accounting for 30.3 percent of the national gross domestic product. The new economy represented by the digital economy was thriving.

The market value of cloud computing and core big data industries registered a year-on-year increase of over 30 percent and 45 percent to approximately 50 billion yuan and 16.8 billion yuan, respectively.