In recent years, the low altitude economy has become an important direction for developed economies around the world to compete. Although the low altitude economy is still in its early stages of cultivation worldwide, countries and regions such as the United States, Japan, and the European Union have actively introduced and improved relevant policies around scenario development and application, traffic management capabilities, operational technology verification, and system standard systems to accelerate the development of low altitude economy. Low altitude economy is a series of interrelated industrial economic activities that rely on low altitude flight activities to drive and connect. It not only includes industry enterprises that produce materials, components, and subsystems necessary for the manufacturing of aircraft in the upstream, but also includes the assembly, integration, manufacturing, testing, and flight testing of low altitude aircraft in the middle and downstream, facility support, and low altitude services. The low altitude economy has a long industrial chain, strong industrial correlation, and rich application scenarios, with significant characteristics such as strategic leadership and high growth potential. It can not only promote the deep integration and development of modern agriculture and animal husbandry, advanced manufacturing, and modern service industries, but also expand effective investment, boost consumer demand, and enhance innovation capabilities. The major countries in the world attach great importance to the development of low altitude economy because they are optimistic about its development prospects. At present, China's low altitude economy is in the early stage of market cultivation, and the practicality and commercial value of key technologies have only been preliminarily verified, but they have demonstrated broad growth potential. In the future, with the iteration and upgrading of technology and the gradual maturity of business models, the high growth potential of low altitude economy will be further released, making it easier to achieve group explosive growth of related industrial enterprises, and is expected to become a new engine for driving economic growth. On the one hand, the industrial scale of low altitude aircraft is accelerating and the industrial ecology is continuously improving. At present, China's international competitiveness in drone manufacturing is gradually increasing, and the world leading advantage of consumer grade drones is prominent. As of the end of 2023, there are over 2300 civilian drone research and development enterprises in China, with over 1000 mass-produced drone products. In 2023, the scale of China's civilian drone industry will reach 117.43 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32%. At the same time, the integration and development of new generation information technology, new materials, new energy, and aviation science and technology are accelerating, promoting the iteration of low altitude aircraft power equipment and systems, sensors, flight control systems, and other related technologies. Green, efficient, safe, and low-noise aircraft design, manufacturing, and verification technologies are also continuously updated and upgraded. On the other hand, a large and diverse range of application scenarios continue to emerge, driving low altitude services to quickly release momentum. The number of operating aircraft has significantly increased. According to the "2023-2024 China Civil Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Development Report", as of the end of August 2024, the number of registered unmanned aerial vehicles in China reached 1.987 million, an increase of 720000 from the end of 2023; A total of 220000 drone pilot licenses were issued, an increase of 13.9% from the end of 2023. With the rapid development of low altitude cultural and tourism applications such as film and television aerial photography, aviation sports, and aerial sightseeing, the low altitude economy can provide new supply to meet the needs of the people for a better life. In 2023, the "Aviation+Film and Television+Tourism" integrated transportation and tourism case in Hengdian was selected as one of the top ten cases for the integrated development of transportation and tourism in the first batch; In 2024, Dunhuang's "Feitian" general aviation project and other aviation tourism product cases were selected as the second batch of demonstration cases for the integration of transportation and tourism development. The potential of the low altitude tourism market is beginning to emerge. At the same time, the development and application of low altitude economy in industries such as agricultural crop protection and modern logistics continue to deepen. With the continuous maturity of drone application technology and the continuous enrichment of application scenarios, the multi scenario operation of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery continues to expand, and the market size of agricultural drone services is showing a vigorous development trend. In 2024, the number of crop protection drones in China will reach 251000, with a total operating area of 2.67 billion acres, a year-on-year increase of nearly 25%. From a global perspective, since the 1980s, the penetration rate of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in agricultural crop protection operations in the United States has exceeded 50%, and 60% of rice fields in Japan use UAVs for crop protection operations. Compared to other countries, the penetration rate of agricultural drone operations in China is still relatively low, and there is great room for development. In the field of low altitude logistics, unmanned distribution using drones as carriers has become an important direction for optimizing urban logistics. This can effectively solve many problems faced by traditional logistics distribution models, such as labor costs, significant increases in transportation costs, and low efficiency in material distribution and circulation. In the field of "low altitude+", the low altitude economy has achieved outstanding results in empowering social governance, promoting the rapid development of public services such as inspection, emergency rescue, urban management, forest fire prevention, and medical rescue. In practice, cities such as Yanqing in Beijing and Wuhan in Hubei have adopted unmanned aerial vehicles for intelligent inspection of power lines, effectively reducing inspection costs and improving inspection efficiency. However, it should also be noted that there are still some problems in the development of China's low altitude economy, such as shortcomings in overall development and safety, insufficient integration of industries, incomplete coordination mechanisms for airspace management, and relatively lagging infrastructure construction. In this regard, comprehensive measures should be taken from highlighting cluster integration, strengthening technological innovation, and enhancing facility construction to fully unleash the development potential of the low altitude economy. One is to highlight cluster integration, accelerate the cultivation and growth of low altitude economic industrial clusters, take market demand as the driving force and technological innovation as the driving force, actively improve industrial ecology, plan application scenarios, and promote the cluster development of low altitude manufacturing industry. The second is to strengthen technological innovation, focus on the weak links in the low altitude economic innovation chain, increase investment in scientific and technological innovation, and accelerate the improvement of low altitude technological support capabilities. The third is to strengthen facility construction, build a comprehensive guarantee system for low altitude economic infrastructure, adhere to green development and conservation, coordinate the construction of ground supporting infrastructure such as general airports, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft landing sites, fixed operation bases, and flight service stations, promote the construction of information infrastructure such as low altitude flight communication, navigation, and meteorological monitoring, and accelerate the construction of low altitude economic intelligent network facilities. In addition, it is necessary to coordinate development and safety, strengthen the monitoring and protection of low altitude aircraft, enhance the research and development of low altitude safety technology, and improve the refined management capability of airspace. Adhere to the concept of inclusive and prudent safety risk management, establish a regulatory service system, establish a flexible and dynamic low altitude airspace management and utilization mechanism, and enhance the coordination and linkage of management. (The author is Yang Wei, Associate Researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics and Technological Economics, China Academy of Macroeconomics) (Xinhua News Agency)