FACTBOX: Development of the new economy in China

Visitors watch a robot during the Appliance & Electronics World Expo 2017 in east China's Shanghai, March 9, 2017. China's gross domestic product expanded 6.9 percent year on year in the first half of the year to about 38.15 trillion yuan (5.62 trillion U.S. dollars), data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Monday. (Xinhua/Chen Fei)

The new economy, spurred by the latest round of information and technological revolution, has created new sectors and business models in China, allowing the country to play a leading role in global economic development.

China should use emerging information technology, including cloud computing and the Internet of Things, to shore up the digital economy, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said at a seminar Monday, citing rapid growth in information consumption, mobile payments and e-commerce.

The following are facts and figures on China's development of the new economy:

-- As a major part of the new economy, the digital economy has grown rapidly in recent years. The aggregate value of the country's digital economy soared to 22.6 trillion yuan (about 3.4 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2016 from 18.6 trillion yuan the previous year, accounting for over 30 percent of the country's GDP.

-- The range of information intensive products expanded, which now include mobile phones, computers, intelligent internet-connected vehicles, and sharing bikes. The value-added of the information industry reached 5.2 trillion yuan in 2016, 8.7 percent higher on a year-on-year basis and accounting for 6.9 percent of the country's GDP.

-- Over the past five years, information consumption has grown at an average annual rate of nearly 21 percent, accounting for over 9 percent of final consumption expenditure. In 2016, the amount of information consumption increased to 3.9 trillion yuan from 3.2 trillion the year before.

-- The country's information technology services industry yielded income of 1.37 trillion yuan in the first half of 2017, up 15.7 percent year-on-year.

-- E-commerce has maintained relatively rapid growth in the first half of 2017. In 2016, China's cross-border e-commerce transaction reached 6.5 trillion yuan, making the country the world's largest cross-border e-commerce market.

-- From December 2016 to May 2017, online retail sales hit 3.02 trillion yuan, 35.3 percent higher than the same period the year before.

In the first five months of 2017, online retail sales accounted for about 13.2 percent of China's retail sales.

-- The country's sharing economy witnessed a total transaction volume of 3.45 trillion yuan in 2016, more than doubling that in 2015, with products ranging from shared bikes and cars to umbrellas and apartments.

-- The aggregate size of China's cloud computing sector reached 150 billion yuan in 2015.

-- China's Internet of Things sector was valued at 750 billion yuan in 2015.

-- The market size for smart logistics and intelligent driving reached 200 billion yuan and 49 billion yuan respectively in 2016.

-- By the end of 2016, there were nearly 60 online banks, serving 250 million clients nationwide.

-- In 2016, the total value of mobile payments nationwide reached over 157 trillion yuan, up nearly 50 percent over the previous year.