China's State Council on Jan 12 unveiled a plan to further promote the development of the digital economy during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), which is also the first national-level special plan on the digital economy. Here are some highlights from the guideline:

Key numbers:

- By 2025, the added value of the core industries in the digital economy is expected to account for 10 percent of GDP, up from 7.8 percent in 2020.

- The number of users of the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) based services is expected to hit 800 million by 2025, compared to 460 million in 2020.

- The number of China's gigabit broadband users is expected to jump from 6.4 million in 2020 to 60 million in 2025.

- The size of the software and information technology service sector is expected to grow from 8.16 trillion yuan in 2020 to 14 trillion yuan in 2025.

- Online retail sales and the size of e-commerce is expected to be 17 trillion yuan and 46 trillion yuan in 2025.

- The penetration rate of industrial internet platform application is expected to jump from 14.7 percent in 2020 to 45 percent in 2025.

The plan also details key tasks in eight areas:

- Optimizing and upgrading digital infrastructure

- Giving full play to the role of data elements

- Moving forward digital transformation of industries

- Speeding up the digital industrialization

- Enhancing the digitization of public services

- Setting up a sound digital economy governance system

- Strengthening the security system of the digital economy

- Expanding international cooperation on the digital economy