In recent years, the mainland has continued to promote market reform of data elements. In 2014, the concept of "big data" was written into the government work report for the first time; in 2017, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee conducted the second collective study on the implementation of the national big data strategy, and it was clear that it was necessary to promote the innovative development of the big data technology industry, build a digital economy with data as the key element, use big data to improve the modernization level of national governance, use big data to promote the protection and improvement of people's livelihood, and ensure national data security. In 2019, the Fourth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC Central Committee) "Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Several Major Issues Concerning Upholding and Improving the Socialist System with Chinese Characteristics and Promoting the Modernization of the National Governance System and Governance Capacity" for the first time explicitly used data as a production factor to participate in social distribution. In April 2020, the Cpc Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Building a More Perfect Factor Market-based Allocation System and Mechanism", which identified data elements as one of the five major elements and required accelerated cultivation of the data element market.
From the perspective of policy focus, the policy has changed from promoting big data technology innovation and industrial development to comprehensively strengthening the market-oriented allocation of data elements and building a data element market. In the early days, the relevant development plans and outlines for big data policies focused on big data technology and the development of big data industry, and the relevant development plans and outlines for 2015-2016 mainly focused on "strengthening the research and development of big data technology products", "developing core technologies", "accelerating the cultivation of big data industry entities", "promoting industrial innovation and development", etc. With the rapid development of the mainland's digital economy and the continuous growth of industries, the importance of data as a factor of production has gradually become prominent.
Since 2017, on the basis of supporting industrial development and technological innovation, the policy has given more prominence to the cultivation and construction of the data element market, and clearly built a digital economy with data as the key element. In the "14th Five-Year Plan" Big Data Development Plan issued in November 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly proposed to accelerate the cultivation of the data element market. In terms of standards and norms, it is proposed to improve the nature of property rights according to the nature of data, and establish basic systems and standards such as property rights of data resources, transaction circulation, cross-border transmission and security. In terms of pricing, a data element value assessment framework and valuation guidelines were developed, including basic guidelines, methods and valuation processes for value accounting.
In terms of transactions, we will promote the establishment of a market mechanism for market pricing and government supervision of data elements, develop market operation systems such as data asset evaluation, registration and settlement, transaction matching, and dispute arbitration, cultivate a big data trading market, encourage enterprises of all types of ownership to participate in the construction of factor trading platforms, explore various forms of data transaction models, and enhance the allocation of data elements. The "14th Five-Year Plan" for the Development of the Digital Economy issued by the State Council in January 2022 further proposes to give full play to the role of data elements, strengthen the supply of high-quality data elements, accelerate the market-oriented circulation of data elements, and innovate the development and utilization mechanism of data elements.
Defang Big Data (idatafun.com) believes that China has more institutional advantages than developed countries in Europe and the United States in data sharing transactions: First, the mainland has obvious advantages in data resources. By the end of 2020, there were 989 million Internet users on the mainland, and world bank statistics show that the internet penetration rate in the mainland exceeds 70%. According to IDC calculations, in 2018, China had 7.6 ZB of data, accounting for 23.4% of the global data volume, and it is expected that in the future, with the further improvement of the number of communication equipment and Internet of Things device access and carrying capacity, China's data volume will reach 48.6 ZB in 2025, accounting for 27.8% of the global data volume, much higher than the 17.5% of the United States, becoming the world's largest data center.
Secondly: according to the "14th Five-Year Plan" big data industry development plan of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the scale of the big data industry in mainland China will exceed 1 trillion yuan by the end of 2020, and the scale of the big data industry will exceed 3 trillion yuan during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
Finally, in recent years, the mainland government has accelerated the emergence of policies and guidance documents for cultivating the data element market, providing an important direction for social innovation and social capital.
It is undeniable that one of the impacts of IT technology on society is that data is within reach, but at the same time, all aspects of regulations and standards are still urgently improving, there will be various problems in the market that need to be solved urgently, data ownership needs to be further clarified, data leakage and other issues will hinder the full circulation of data, and it is urgent for relevant governments and enterprises to propose new solutions.