Nowadays, facing the overlapping impact of a great change that has not happened in a century and the pandemic of the century, the international situation is complex and turbulent, and all countries in the world are facing new problems and challenges in their developments.
Against the backdrop of the sluggish recovery of global economy, the digital economy is developing rapidly along with the wave of the information revolution. Looking around the whole world, the Internet, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other technologies are rapidly innovated and increasingly integrated into all areas and whole process of economic and social developments. China and Thailand are proactively adapting to the trend of digital economy development in such a context, and have already focused on implementing relevant policies that help the development of their digital economies. This means that the developing digital economy has become an important consensus between the two countries, and will also be a new grip and new momentum for the two countries to deepen bilateral relations in the coming future.
China has developed certain experience and advantages in developing the digital economy. In terms of scale, the scale of China's digital economy industry continues to grow rapidly and has been ranked second in the world for several years. Statistics and calculations show that from 2012 to 2021, the size of China's digital economy grew from 11 trillion yuan to over 45 trillion yuan, and the percentage of digital economy accounted for GDP has raised from 21.6% to 39.8%. In terms of national strategic layout, the development of China's digital economy has been elevated to a national strategy, and has already become an important focus point as well as breakthrough for China to promote the construction of a new development pattern, build a modern economic system and construct new national competitive advantage. In the coming future, "developing digital trade" has become a key initiative for China to promote the high level of opening up to the outside world. It is clear that China will continue to promote the high-quality development of the digital economy in the long term, also this economic development dividend will spill over, bringing new opportunities of cooperation, including the cooperation between China and Thailand. Such cooperating opportunities can be:
China helps Thailand accelerate the improvement of digital infrastructure. As a major infrastructure construction country, China has accumulated experience and advantages in new infrastructure construction, especially in broadband fiber installation and 5G base station construction, which can be helpful during the process of the building of "Digital Thailand" and effectively support Thailand's future development as one of ASEAN digital hubs. At the same time, by promoting digital infrastructure construction, the level of digital connectivity between China and Thailand can be significantly improved, and both countries can play a more influential role in regional development as a driving force for the recovery of regional economic.
China helps Thailand to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of e-commerce. In recent years, Thailand's e-commerce market has grown rapidly, and Chinese companies have introduced mature technical experience and operational models in logistics and storage systems for local e-commerce platforms, helped local e-commerce to improve their technology, logistics and payment systems, as well as introduced new marketing models such as live streaming into the Southeast Asian e-commerce market.
China helps Thailand accelerate digital application and transformation. The Thai government has been committed to promoting the digital transformation of various industries and the development of the digital economy so as to enhance national competitiveness. China has already made quite a few achievements in promoting the integration and development of digital technology elements such as the Internet with the real economy, and is willing to share its experience in digital transformation of relevant industries with Thailand. For example, Chinese companies have helped Thailand launch a pilot 5G smart hospital project, which has facilitated the intelligent transformation of local healthcare.
China and Thailand can further international cooperation in digital economy. For instance, in October 2022, Thailand hosted the official meeting of the 29th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Finance Ministers' Meeting and the meeting focused on current issues such as the digital transformation of global and regional finance. Deepening consensus and cooperation between China and Thailand on APEC and other international institutional platforms can obviously enhance the power of digital economy governance from developing countries in the whole world scale.