环球快消息!海外之声丨IMF副总裁:数字化助推亚洲生产力发展

2023-05-02 08:39:02 来源:IMI财经观察

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早在新冠疫情爆发之前,亚洲地区的生产率增长便已显出乏力态势;而疫情造成的严重经济创伤,则使亚洲经济前景更加暗淡。金融环境收紧、出口需求减少、中国经济出现急剧和异常放缓等现象都对亚洲经济反弹形成巨大挑战。

尽管如此,数字化依旧能为亚洲经济带来希望。数字技术可以提高公共和私人部门的效率,加强金融包容性,改善受教育机会,从而开辟新的市场。并且,亚洲地区的数字化水平在近年来一直处于世界领先地位,涵盖了制造业自动化、电子商务平台、数字支付等多个领域。日本的乐天、中国的阿里巴巴、印尼的GoTo都是电子商务的重要参与者。

不过,亚洲各国的数字鸿沟却限制了该地区生产力的发展。各国内部和各企业之间获得尖端数字技术的机会极不均衡。中小企业在获取和使用数字技术方面面临重大障碍,使其在疫情期间难以实现远程办公或在线销售。此外,精通数字技术的劳动力稀缺,也阻碍了领先企业与落后企业之间的信息共享,削弱了采用新技术的信心。

因此,进一步提高数字素养,缩小企业、行业和劳动者之间的数字鸿沟,将有助于弥合生产率缺口。IMF经济学家最新发表的论文便重点关注了亚洲地区可实施的数字化改革措施,涉及数字基础设施、劳动力信息素养、中小企业融资渠道、数字产业相关法规等方面,致力于推动亚洲地区生产力发展。

作者丨Antoinette M. Sayeh(IMF副总裁), Era Dabla-Norris(IMF亚太部助理主任), Tidiane Kinda(IMF亚太部副主任)

Asia"s Productivity Needs a Boost That Digitalization Can Provide

Amid slowing global growth, promoting technological adoption and closing digital divides can help the region boost aggregate productivity and economic output

Antoinette M. Sayeh,Deputy Managing Director of the IMF

Era Dabla-Norris,Assistant Director in the IMF’s Asia Pacific Department

Tidiane Kinda, Deputy Division Chief in the IMF’s Asia Pacific Department

January 9, 2023

Asia’s strong economic rebound from the pandemic is losing steam as tightening financial conditions, reduced export demand, and China’s sharp and uncharacteristic slowdowndim the outlook.

More broadly, deep economic scars from the pandemic andthelackluster productivity growth that preceded it are weighing on the region’s longer-term growth prospects. But despite these challenges, we see a promising path for boosting Asia’s productivity that runs through a landscape in which it has a history of leadership: digitalization.

Digital technologies can increase the efficiency of the public and private sectors, expand financial inclusion, improve access to education, and open new markets by allowing companies to serve distant customers. For instance, during the pandemic, digitalization improved the allocation of precious resources for health and social benefits, allowing a prompt provision of relief while keeping leakages of public spending in check. Digitalization has helped support resilience during the pandemic, where, combined with large fiscal support, remote work and online sales protected workers, students and businesses.

Asia as digital powerhouse

Asia’s digital landscape has swelled in recent years, encompassing a broad range of innovations, from manufacturing automation to e-commerce platforms, all the way to digital payments. The region accounted for 60 percent of patents in digital and computer technologies right before the pandemic, up from 40 percent two decades earlier. The manufacturing powerhouse enjoys a wide global lead in installation of industrial robots. China is the single biggest robot user, accounting for some 30 percent of the market.

Japan’s Rakuten, China’s Alibaba Group, and Indonesia’s GoTo Group are major players in e-commerce, with revenues that rival that of Amazon and Walmart. India’s pioneering of digital infrastructure known as stacks has made it a leading example of how tobring together digital paymentsand identification to expand access to finance. Growing youth populations in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam have rapidly adopted new technologies and become a sizable potential customer base for the digital economy.

The pandemic accelerated the region’s digitalization trend. The proportion of patent applications for remote work and e-commerce technologies surged during the pandemic as did spending on e-commerce, with Asia now accounting for nearly 60 percent of the world’s online retail sales. E-commerce revenues grew by 40–50 percent in Vietnam, Indonesia, and India in 2020, outpacing most of the world.

This rapid increase was spurred by the shift away from cash payments and a resulting boom in digital alternatives, particularly e-wallets and prepaid cards.

Digital divides halt progress

Despite successes, the region’s digital divides constrain productivity growth. Access to cutting-edge digital technologies is highly uneven within countries, and across firms.

Small and medium-sized enterprises face significant barriers to access and use of digital technologies. Ournew papershows that nearly half of SMEs and about a third of large firms in emerging and developing Asia report difficulty in obtaining financing as a major barrier to technology adoption. Low levels of digitalization and difficulties in accessing and adopting new technologies made it hard for these firms to telework or sell online amid the pandemic.

A slow diffusion of technology between leading and lagging firms also underpins the technological divide. Constraints such as the scarcity of a digital-savvy workforce, unequal access to digital infrastructure, weaknesses in the legal environment, including lack of adequate legislation on data protection and intellectual property rights, hinder information sharing and confidence in technological adoption.

Digital gaps also prevent workers from reaping the full rewards of participating in the new economy and reaching their full potential. For example, with only a quarter of the overall population using the internet, Indonesia has one of the lowest internet penetration rates in Southeast Asia. And while access is affordable in Vietnam and Bangladesh, internet connections are often slow.

Path for policy
Further improving digital literacy and reducing the digital divide across firms, industries, and workers would help close productivity gaps.

Ournew paperfocuses on needed reforms to bolster broad-based innovation and digitalization to boost aggregate productivity and growth in Asia.

Reform priorities include:

·Enhancing countries’ digital infrastructure to improve access to information and technology.

·Upgrading digital literacy and upskilling the young workforce in many countries to meet employers’ demand.

·Alleviating financing constraints faced by SMEs to help them adopt new technologies. Greater access to finance would help innovators introduce new products.

·Facilitating adoption of new technologies by streamlining regulations in line with the evolving digital industry, enhancing the legal environment, including on data and intellectual property rights protection, and facilitating digital trade.

Asia is poised to continue leading digital innovation. Facilitating equal access to technologies across firms, industries, and workers will help the region fully benefit from the economic boost that digitization offers.

编译:翟晓吉

监制:董熙君

来源|IMF

版面编辑|邸馨逸

责任编辑|李锦璇、蒋旭

总监制|朱霜霜

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