Xi: Blockchain an Economic ‘Breakthrough’
Chinese President Xi Jinping said blockchain is making an economic breakthroughs, recognizing the potential of this technology in public for the first time.
The new generation of information technology represented by artificial intelligence, quantum information, mobile communication, internet of things, and blockchain accelerate the breakthrough in application and bred new life science fields represented by synthetic biology, gene editing, brain science, and regenerative medicine,” Xi said in a gathering in China.
“Since entering the 21st century, global scientific and technological innovation has entered an unprecedented period of intensive activity. A new round of scientific and technological revolutions and industrial changes are reconstructing the global innovation map and reshaping the global economic structure,” he added.
Blockchain plays a vital part in the technology revolution which China should seize to flourish in the global economy, the Chinese leader told delegates of the 19th Academician Meeting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 14th Academician Meeting of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
To achieve this objective, China will put up national laboratories with high standards to further research and development of technology infrastructure.
Xi, however, did not provide additional information on how the country intends to utilize blockchain to attain its goals.
It can be recalled the Chinese government, through People’s Bank of China, banned cryptocurrencies last September by closing local virtual currency exchanges and ordering commercial banks to prohibit transactions done with crypto brokerages.
Despite the crackdown on digital currencies, the Xi administration and some conglomerates including Alibaba and Tencent have continued their work on the development of blockchain and decentralized platforms which could improve the economy and shape the global financial structure.
Xi’s statement comes after Hangzhou Blockchain Industrial Park unveiled a policy which aims to provide millions of dollars in subsidies to tap more highly-skilled people and startup companies.
Under the new policy, the enterprise zone is supporting talented more individuals and startups by providing a subsidy worth up to 3 million Chinese yuan, or about $490,000, as a resettlement allowance.
To attract them to establish their own offices at the Hangzhou complex, the new guidelines have introduced four primary types of subsidies to new firms.
Earlier, the Chinese government’s central administrative branch stated how it intends to implement the technology.
China’s State Council earlier mandated Guangdong Free-trade Zone to fast-track bloockchain’s application and development as part of the region’s economic reform.
One aspect of the initiative is fast-tracking the development of financial technologies, which entails the expedition of “developing and implementing blockchain applications under existing regulatory frameworks,” based on the document.
This is part of an information technology reformation strategy as outlined in China’s 13th five-year economic development plan covering the years 2016 to 2020.
“To build a regional equity market in Guangdong, according to the opening up of the capital market, timely introduction of Hong Kong, Macao and international investment institutions to participate in transactions. We will vigorously develop financial technology and accelerate the research and application of blockchain and big data technologies under the premise of legal compliance,” the agency had stated in its order.
That order also involved certain areas in which blockchain development is needed for the inception of “financial technologies” where the distributed ledger technology can be utilized with the current regulations.
This was first released by the State Council earlier this month to provincial and municipal governments to address various strategies necessary to continue the improvement of the Guangdong free-trade zone in the Asian nation.
According to recent data released by China’s Ministry of Information and Technology show the Guangdong province houses 71 blockchain startup firms, a number which comprises 16 percent of industry players in the Asian country.
It has previously been said Chinese officials will aggressively advance the development blockchain for them to exhibit how the country could headline the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the evolution of such an emerging technology in the world today.
