The Era of Data as a Critical Production Factor

On November 26, 2019, in China, the 11th meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform reviewed and approved the Opinions on Constructing a More Perfect Market-oriented Allocation System for Production Factors. This document recognized data as a production factor on par with land, labor, capital, and technology. To “deepen the reform of market-oriented allocation of factors, promote the autonomous and orderly flow of factors, and improve the efficiency of factor allocation,” it proposed accelerating the cultivation of the data factor market from three aspects: “promoting the openness and sharing of government data,” “enhancing the value of social data resources,” and “strengthening the integration and security protection of data resources”.