(Yicai Global) Dec. 20 -- China's digital economy is estimated to have been worth CNY16 trillion (USD2.3 trillion) in the first half, accounting for 38.2 percent of gross domestic product, up from 32.9 percent last year, according to a new white paper.

China's digital industrialization was valued at CNY3.2 trillion, an annual jump of 15 percent, while that for industrial digitalization was CNY12.9 trillion, China News Service reported, citing the paper released in Beijing yesterday by the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology.

But development of the nation's digital economy is unbalanced and insufficient, Lu Chuncong, director of the Policy and Economics Research Institute at the CAICT, said at a press briefing. According to last year's data, the province with the most digitalized economy was 64 times that of the smallest. The service sector leads at the digitalization level, while it is relatively low in industry and agriculture, with much room for improvement.

The CAICT also issued a research report on the Group of 20 countries. It suggested that their progress in developing the digital economy can be split into three stages. The US is in the first stage; China, Japan, Germany, the UK, France and South Korea are in the second stage; while India, Brazil, South Africa and the other countries are in the third.

Digitization of the economy is a global trend, Lu said, adding that the government should promote digital transformation of enterprises in the industry chain from input to output, to speed up the process of industrial digitalization.