At the two sessions which ended in mid-March, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pointed out that “It is necessary to promote the development of digital economy, strengthen the overall layout of digital China’s construction, build digital information infrastructure, promote the digital transformation of industries, accelerate the development of industrial internet and improve the governance of the digital economy.” As an important part of the digital economy, the development trend and application prospect of metaverse have attracted the attention of both inside and outside of the industry. During the two sessions, Metaverse-related proposals appeared frequently, and more than 20 NPC deputies and CPPCC members put forward strategic suggestions on their supervision, management, and innovation opportunities.
WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING
As one of the hot words of the two sessions, the metaverse has frequently appeared in many 2022 government work reports. Xinhua Net summarizes the development plans, measures and action plans of the metaverse and the related industries released in Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Jiangsu and other places this year. Tongzhou district of Beijing will create a “Metaverse Innovation Center” to promote the formation of a new metaverse innovation consortium. Shanghai will focus on building the North Bund metaverse development and application demonstration zone to build a batch of metaverse industrial-economic space. To foster metaverse enterprises, Xiamen will form a metaverse industry alliance to support enterprises to jointly carry out metaverse technology application research.
The East Money Net reported the release of “Guangzhou Huangpu District and Guangzhou Development Zone Measures for Promoting Metaverse Innovation and Development”. The document is also called “Ten Measures for Metaverse” and is the first special support policy for metaverse in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. According to the Development Measures, the scope of support covers ten aspects, including technological innovation, application demonstration, protection of intellectual property rights, talent drain, exchange and cooperation, and fund support. Emphasis is placed on cultivating industrial metaverse, digital virtual human, and digital art transactions, which embody the development trend of the metaverse.
The Fiscal Association summarized the proposals of the two sessions on the metaverse industry. Based on the “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Digital Economy”, the Democratic Progressive Party said that digital infrastructure is the fourth-largest type of infrastructure and the foundation of the digital economy including the metaverse industry. The China Democratic League called for the promotion of the underlying technologies involved in the metaverse, such as 5G/6G, big data, AI, blockchain, the integration of space and earth, and other emerging technologies, to guide social capital to focus on research and development in such areas as core software and hardware, and to effectively and orderly promote the healthy development of the metaverse. Other representatives and members of the Committee made suggestions on building a “Metaverse China” digital economy from both regulatory and innovation perspectives.
Under the background that China’s digital economy is in urgent need of differentiated competitive advantages, the metaverse may become the key breakthrough. The Paper reported on the mixed application scenario of metaverse with multi-element proposed by members and representatives during the two sessions. Metaverse can integrate a variety of technologies to create internet applications that combine reality with virtuality, including cultural and tourism projects, theme parks, opera education, etc. Wan Jie, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, has put forward the idea of enabling the traditional cultural industry in the metaverse, providing an immersive experience through augmented reality technology, and giving full play to the advantages of massive data and application scenarios to promote the transformation and upgrading of the industry under the targeted support and guidance of government departments.
Aiming at the development challenge of the metaverse, Yicai focuses on how to standardize the market order of the metaverse industry in the future. The metaverse is still in its infancy. Therefore, it is necessary to guard against the use of national development plans and hot concepts by capital and to avoid the occurrence of such chaos as concept alienation and rampant speculation. Zhang Ying, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, pointed out that “a metaverse should be formed with the development orientation of” strengthening reality with virtuality and a digital space governance rule with Chinese characteristics should be constructed to conform to the global trend.” Because of the supervision of illegal activities such as the fake metaverse investment project, Tan Jianfeng believes that the current theory of the metaverse concept is greater than the practical application, so the supervision should effectively guard against all kinds of technological, market, business and other risks.
INFLUENCE MATTERS ANALYSIS
This year’s government work report points out that it is necessary to improve the governance of the digital economy, release the potential of data elements, and better enable economic development and enrich people’s lives. Metaverse has great development prospects and growth potential. The policy direction in the future will focus on strengthening supervision and encouraging innovation to encourage financial institutions to innovate products and services and promote legislation in the field of the virtual digital economy. Supported by the policy dividend, metaverse will bring new opportunities for the upgrading and transformation of the digital economy and contribute new technologies, new applications and new formats to the multi-field industrial transformation.
