On the 27th, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the new driving force index of China's economic development in 2024 (based on 100 in 2022) was 136.0, an increase of 14.2% over the previous year. Among them, the network economy and innovation drive contribute significantly to the overall index growth. Lu Haiqi, Director of the Institute of Statistical Science at the National Bureau of Statistics, said that the latest calculation results of the Economic Development New Momentum Index show that the new driving forces mainly composed of new industries, new formats, and new models continue to grow and expand, the economy demonstrates strong vitality, innovation driven development has achieved new results, the driving role of the network economy is obvious, transformation and upgrading continue to advance, and the cultivation of new driving forces and the updating of old driving forces are coordinated and linked, supporting the solid promotion of high-quality economic development in China. According to calculations, the economic vitality index for 2024 is 130.9, an increase of 14.5% compared to the previous year. Throughout the year, 27.37 million new business entities were established, with an average of 24000 new enterprises established daily. The investment in high-tech industries increased by 8.0%, which is 4.8 percentage points faster than the total investment. Among them, the investment in high-tech manufacturing and high-tech service industries increased by 7.0% and 10.2% respectively. The revenue from express delivery business was 1403.4 billion yuan, which helped to promote the growth of new consumption and smooth economic circulation. With the deepening of China's innovation driven development strategy, steady promotion of the construction of a strong science and technology country, continuous deepening of the reform of the science and technology system, continuous improvement of the science and technology innovation system, comprehensive implementation of major national science and technology projects, cultivation of a new batch of national level advanced manufacturing clusters, acceleration of the creation of a high-level innovation ecology, accelerated growth of science and technology investment, continuous strengthening of the main position of enterprises in innovation, continuous emergence of major innovation achievements, new achievements in integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, quantum technology and other fields, simultaneous improvement of intellectual property quality, and accelerated transformation of innovation achievements. According to calculations, the innovation driven index for 2024 is 138.5, an increase of 13.2% compared to the previous year. The expenditure on research and experimental development (RD) in the whole society reached 3.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.3%, and the expenditure on basic research was 249.7 billion yuan, an increase of 10.5%; Accumulated cultivation of 14600 specialized and innovative "little giant" enterprises; The number of high-value invention patents per 10000 population reached 14, an increase of 2.2 from the previous year; The transaction amount of technology contracts reached 6835.4 billion yuan, an increase of 11.2%. The leading role played by the internet economy is also noteworthy. The network economy index will reach 142.4 in 2024, an increase of 16.2% over the previous year. By the end of 2024, mobile Internet access traffic has reached 337.6 billion GB, an increase of 11.6%; There are 4.25 million 5G base stations nationwide, accounting for 33.6% of the total number of mobile base stations. The national online retail sales amounted to 15.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.2%; The export volume of cross-border e-commerce reached 2.15 trillion yuan, an increase of 16.9%. China vigorously promotes new industrialization, deeply implements the action plan for high-quality development of key manufacturing industry chains, and continuously improves the resilience and independent controllability of industrial and supply chains. ”Lu Haiqi stated that the deepening implementation of the manufacturing technology transformation and upgrading project and the "Artificial Intelligence+" action will accelerate the development of industry towards high-end, intelligent, and green directions. At the same time, we will coordinate the promotion of emerging industry technologies, industries, and scene innovation, promote digital industrialization and industrial digitization in a coordinated manner, and give birth to a number of new products, services, and formats for digital applications. The development momentum of new tracks such as domestic artificial intelligence models and humanoid robots is strong. According to calculations, the transformation and upgrading index for 2024 is 127.8, an increase of 12.5% compared to the previous year. The growth rate of the added value of strategic emerging industries continues to accelerate, with the added value of high-tech manufacturing increasing by 8.9%, accounting for 16.3% of the added value of industries above designated size. In addition, the proportion of non fossil energy in total energy consumption increased by 1.8 percentage points compared to the previous year; The export of electric vehicles has exceeded 2 million units, and the export volume of lithium batteries has exceeded 3.9 billion units, setting a new historical high. (New Society)