DIGITAL ECONOMY INITIATIVE PRESENTED AT ASEM HIGH-LEVEL FORUM ON DIGITAL CONNECTIVITY IN CHINA
May 19, 2017
Following an invitation from the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC), GCEL presented its Global Digital Economy Initiative at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) High-Level Forum on Digital Connectivity held in Qingdao, China, on June 19–20, 2017.
The forum brought together approximately 600 delegates from Asia and Europe, with China’s Vice Premier, H.E. Wang Yang, delivering the keynote address.
Established in 1996, ASEM is an intergovernmental platform that promotes political, economic, and social cooperation between 30 European countries, 21 Asian countries, the European Union, and the ASEAN Secretariat.
During the forum, GCEL emphasized that digitalization should be pursued as a tool for sustainable economic growth rather than as an objective in itself. The presentation highlighted the importance of digitizing global value chains across the USD 140 trillion B2B marketplace, which was projected to reach USD 312 trillion by 2025.
GCEL also stressed that a global digital trade ecosystem requires broad international collaboration, as no single organization, country, or region can independently deploy such a system due to geopolitical, monopolistic, and data-privacy considerations.
