Abstract:

[Objective] Under the background of China's bid to join the DEPA(Digital Economy Partnership Agreement), the digital China strategy should become integrated with international digital trade rules. From the perspective of medium-sized businesses, the study explores how to understand and use the digital trade rules of DEPA to help the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to seize the growth opportunities brought by the digital economy, thereby reversing the difficult situations of them. [Methods] This paper summarizes the main digital trade rules of DEPA related to SMEs, compares the distinctions between DEPA-related agreements, and conducts a qualitative analysis of their influence on SMEs. Taking the practice of data regulatory sandbox as a case study, the concrete implementations of relevant digital trade rules are analyzed. [Limitations] Due to the short implementation scope and period of the DEPA agreement, the relevant analysis needs to be further updated and improved in the future. [Results] By analyzing the main rules of DEPA digital trade, relevant policy suggestions are put forward for Chinese SMEs to gear up for the international digital trade rules and speed up their digital transformation.

Key words: DEPA, digital trade rules, small and medium-sized enterprises, digital transformation, data regulatory sandbox