Digital trade rules have become the focus of the game, and the China International Trade Fair has released a blockbuster report: Internet enterprises are showing three trends when going to sea
At the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services Development Summit Forum held on September 3, the Digital Trade Development and Cooperation Report 2023 was released to the public. The report shows that China's international competitiveness in digital trade is steadily increasing, with a net export scale of digital services reaching 46.75 billion US dollars in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 55.8%.
In 2022, the global scale of digital service trade was 3.82 trillion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 3.9%. ICT services continued to lead the growth of segmented digital service trade, and regional digital service trade growth showed differentiation. Multinational corporations' investment in the digital field maintained rapid growth.
In 2022, the total import and export value of digital services in China was $371.08 billion, a year-on-year increase of 3.2%, accounting for 41.7% of the total import and export of services.
There are three trends for Chinese Internet enterprises to go to sea: the main body of going to sea extends from head enterprises to small and medium-sized enterprises; The strategy of going abroad has shifted from capital driven to capital and technology parallel, and the technological value of enterprises in the process of going abroad continues to increase; Expanding overseas products from tool categories to multiple categories. The scale of China's cross-border e-commerce is expanding and the structure is continuously optimizing.
With the acceleration of digital technology and industrial transformation, countries are actively promoting digital transformation, and higher requirements are put forward for the rule environment and regulatory coordination of open development of digital trade. Digital trade rules have become the focus of international economic and trade rule reconstruction and various parties' game.
Overall, rule negotiations have shown multiple highlights in promoting pragmatic and flexible cooperation. However, due to the difficulty in bridging differences and the risk of fragmented governance, it is urgent to strengthen international coordination and cooperation, and jointly build a favorable institutional environment that adapts to the development of digital globalization.
The report provides prospects for the development and cooperation of digital trade: to promote the stable development of digital trade, it is necessary to balance the relationship between development and security; To ensure the sharing of digital trade opportunities, it is necessary to continue to bridge the "digital divide" and enhance the inclusiveness of trade rules; Cross border data flow has become a hot topic of attention, and while promoting the sharing of digital trade dividends, it is necessary to avoid stratification and other factors.
The above report was jointly completed by the Ministry of Foreign Economic Research of the Development Research Center of the State Council and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.