China's newly launched "Internet Plus" strategy will open new frontiers for China's economy and provide a world of opportunities to China's Internet companies.

Zhu Weiqun(C), Huang Jiefu(3rd R), Hu Xiaoyi(3rd L), Li Yanhong(2nd R), Yu Minhong(2nd L), members of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), give a press conference during the third session of the 12th CPPCC National Committee in Beijing, capital of China, March 11, 2015. (Xinhua/Li Xin)

Addressing the opening of China's annual session of the National People's Congress in Beijing on March 5, Premier Li Keqiang laid out China's "Internet Plus" strategy, which will integrate mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data and the Internet of things with modern manufacturing.

The strategy comes at a time of slowing economic growth as China tries to shift into a consumption-based economy from heavy reliance on exports and foreign investment.

Baidu, China's largest search engine and an active advocate for artificial intelligence development, entered into a partnership with automakers to promote its own smart car project last year.

Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu, expressed his great interest in the new strategy at a news conference Wednesday, saying that "Internet Plus" can lead to amazing things especially in the online-to-offline, or O2O, commerce field.

"With half of the Chinese population gaining access to the Internet and the boom of the mobile Internet, the Internet has produced a growing influence on many sectors," he said.

According to the latest data offered by the China Internet Network Information Center, China had 649 million Internet users by the end of 2014, more than 557 million of whom used cell phones to surf the Internet.

Li said, "In the past one or two years, we have been happy to see that the combination of the Internet and traditional industries has amazingly transformed decaying things into miraculous things."

Tencent founder Ma Huateng is another apparent advocate for "Internet Plus." At a media briefing last week, he told reporters that the Internet has opened up frontiers that didn't exist before, including in finance, medical services and education.

"It should also be extended to traditional industries like manufacturing, energy and agriculture," Ma said.

Firms in both the Internet sector and traditional sectors will all benefit from the strategy, including China's largest home appliance maker, Haier.

Zhou Yunjie, a deputy of the NPC and rotating president of Haier, opined that the strategy promises to create a huge ecological system built on the Internet, encompassing big data, the Internet of things and the merging of online and offline services.

"Premier Li was farsighted enough to put forward a strategy that looks forward to products that are 'created in China' rather than 'made in China,'" said Zhou. "This is consistent with Haier's ideas. We are planning to establish an open ecological Internet system by aligning intelligent manufacturing with customers' needs, factories with families, production with data, and the cloud with terminals."

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