China is struggling to reduce the influence of a shadow market for business data, as companies shun the official exchanges that have been set up to tighten control over the sale of information.
Local governments across the country have established 48 exchanges, most of them coming after Beijing enshrined data as a national priority in 2020, making it a fifth pillar of production alongside land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. Under regulatory supervision, government bodies, state-owned enterprises and private companies can buy and sell data on everything from weather patterns to city traffic flows.
However, industry insiders and experts say there is no clear incentive for companies to participate in these fledgling marketplaces and that most data sales are still happening off the exchanges.