At the 2018 Summer Davos in Tianjin, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that to develop the “new economy” means fostering new growth drivers and encouraging China's economic transformation. A broad array of scholars also believe that the 4th Industrial Revolution has served as creating China's new growth drivers, breaking new ground for the country's economic development.
Industry 4.0 is a label given to the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies, which will spur the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) and cyber-physical systems. It first emerged in a German government memo in 2013, and was later used by German chancellor Angela Merkel at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos two years later.
The decline of traditional growth drivers at certain stages is a normal phenomenon in the economic trajectory. At this moment, new growth drivers are urgently needed to cater to the new industrial revolution, and the combination of new and traditional drivers can help form mixed forces that will further growth.
The new growth drivers are growing rapidly in the current stage, and are playing a pivotal part in securing employment, increasing income, promoting transformation and upgrades, which create more than half of China's new employment, with the average annual growth of e-commerce express delivery over 30 percent and green consumption far exceeding GDP growth.
Besides, the contribution rate of consumption in the Chinese economy has exceeded 60 percent, confirming that the pattern of China's economic growth has undergone major changes.
It should be noted however that although it has brought tremendous benefits to China, a lot still needs to be done to further unleash its full potential via efforts in indigenous innovation, mergers and acquisitions, and the establishment of patent pools.
There are three main sources for new growth drivers: the Internet, a reduction in energy costs and institutional change.
At the Summer Davos in 2015, China's Premier Li Keqiang mentioned “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” several times and regarded it as the “new growth driver” for China's economic growth.