China seeks better cross-border control of big data with new plan

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) called for improved cross-border security management of big data till 2025, in a five-year plan published on Tuesday.

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The plan, which builds off of China's 14th Five-Year Plan published earlier this year, comes as the country has pushed forward its regulatory framework for data and technology. It re-affirms data as a "factor of production" and a "national strategic resource".

The plan contains six key tasks, including improving the "marketization" of data, improving computing power, and playing a leading role in developing global technology standards.

It also called for strengthening of management of cross-border data flows and more support for open source initiatives.

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The scale of China's big data industry will exceed $470.79 billion by the end of 2025, MIIT estimated.

Beijing implemented two key laws this year - the Personal Information Protection Law and the Data Security Law, which govern how companies and organisations may store and move data.