Gu Shengzu, vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), led a team to Tianjin municipality on Dec 29 to survey the city's effort to promote its digital development during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period. 

The delegation visited Cashway Fintech Co Ltd, a financial self-service device manufacturer, and Zhongjiao Zhiyun, an intelligent transport system developer, which is a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Co Ltd. 

They held talks with the management teams to learn about the development of the companies. 

Data-driven development can bring about a large number of new industries, new business formats and models, empower traditional industries, help form a new development paradigm, and promote the modernization of governance system and capacity, Gu said. 

He stressed the importance of top-level design in the confirmation, transaction, sharing and opening of data, solving issues concerning data's ownership and the rights over its use and proceeds, and enhancing data's multiplier effect on production efficiency. 

Gu suggested giving priority to infrastructure and accelerating the construction of 5G base stations, big data centers and industrial internet platforms, and urged both digital industrialization and industrial digitization by integrating cutting-edge information technologies with the real economy, strengthening financial support and boosting government-industry-university-research-user-capital synergetic cooperation. 

Efforts should be focused on undertaking fundamental research, developing original innovations, making technological breakthroughs and realizing the iterative development of applications, noted Gu who also emphasized the need to build world-leading innovation teams by cultivating and bringing in talents. 

He also called for the development of digital society and digital government, for narrowing the digital divide, and for the removal of "information islands" and "data chimneys" in order to improve public services and social governance. 

It's necessary to enhance data security governance and to better protect the nation's key data resources, as well as the safety of personal and enterprise information, according to Gu.