As the digital economy continues to thrive and globalization gathers pace, the Global Digital Economy Conference (GDEC) has become a leading event for the digital economy world. To ensure effective preparation of the GDEC 2024, augment the conference's impact, and improve the public's understanding of the digital economy, the conference's organizing committee held a news conference at the news conference hall of the Beijing Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Beijing Municipal People's Government on the morning of June 21. At the conference, Xu Pengfei, deputy secretary-general of the Lhasa Municipal People's Government, provided an update on the Lhasa Summit's progress in preparation work and the region's digital economy development.

The Summit is reportedly scheduled to take place in Lhasa in late July, with the theme of "Building a Digital Bridge Over the Himalayas" and the sub-theme being "Beijing Lights Up Lhasa." With an opening ceremony, main forum, and three sub-forums, the Summit will cover a wide range of topics, including "digital economic zones to generate new quality productive forces," "digital cultural tourism to boost regional tourism," and "digital empowerment to build strong financial business districts." At that time, a gathering of distinguished scholars and experts from China, as well as representatives of leading digital economy enterprises, will convene in Lhasa to discuss the development of the digital economy on the plateau.

The deputy secretary-general of the Lhasa Municipal People's Government, Xu Pengfei, announced at the news conference that Lhasa will send a high-level delegation to the GDEC 2024 opening ceremony, special forum "Face-to-Face Dialogue on Digital Economy between East and West China," and a panel discussion on coordinated development and cooperation in the digital economy between Beijing and Lhasa, among other events. Also, during the "Digital Night," which will highlight Lhasa's traditional culture, the advantages and prospects of Lhasa's digital economy will be showcased in greater detail.

The news conference also highlighted a series of accomplishments that Lhasa has made in developing the digital economy in recent years. According to Xu, Lhasa has made substantial strides in installing and improving digital infrastructure, including successfully building a "double gigabit city," achieving the full coverage of 5G signals, and setting up a "city-county-township-village four-level" e-government network. The local digital transformation of industries has accelerated, with the added value of the digital economy reaching 7.377 billion yuan (US$1 billion) in 2023, a 25.7% increase, and the total investment in informatization reaching 2.05 billion yuan (US$282 million). The Lhasa High Tech Zone has emerged as a digital economy hub. The level of digitization of public services in Lhasa has been considerably improved, and the government services have enabled online processing characterized by "one registration, multi-point mutual recognition, whole network access." The public can choose from over 80 convenient application access points. Furthermore, the government affairs sharing and exchange platform of the Lhasa Municipal People's Government has been linked with the national and regional platforms of the same kind. All those developments show that Lhasa has become a land with great potential for digital innovation.

As the GDEC 2024 Lhasa Summit approaches its final stages of preparation, Lhasa will step up its publicity efforts to draw more local and international businesses to take part in the forum, contribute to its success, and support the sustained and healthy development of Lhasa's digital economy.