The Fair for Trade in Services is an important platform for China to expand opening up, deepen cooperation, and lead innovation. It is also an important window for observing new trends in the development of China's and even the world's trade in services.
In recent years, with the rapid development and application promotion of digital technologies such as big data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, service trade centered on digital trade has entered a period of rapid development. According to statistics, from 2005 to 2020, the scale of global digital service trade exports increased from 1.2 trillion US dollars to 3.1 trillion US dollars; By 2022, the global export value of digitally deliverable services reached 3.8 trillion US dollars.
As the world's second-largest economy, China firmly grasps the development opportunities of service trade and promotes innovative development of service trade. On the one hand, we continue to expand and deepen the opening up of the service industry to the outside world, actively connect with international service trade rules through multilateral, regional, and bilateral mechanisms, establish 28 pilot projects for innovative development of service trade domestically, actively explore institutional mechanisms, policy systems, and open paths for innovative development of service trade, achieve rapid growth of service trade, and continuously optimize trade structure. On the other hand, we utilize the digital economy to empower the high-quality development of the service industry, continuously solidify the foundation of the domestic service industry, promote the transformation and upgrading of the service industry, and improve quality and efficiency. Emerging services such as online education, sharing platforms, remote healthcare, and cross-border e-commerce have emerged as highlights. While facilitating people's lives, they have also become pillar industries driving high-quality economic development. In 2022, China's total import and export of services reached nearly 6 trillion yuan, ranking second in the world for nine consecutive years. In the first seven months of this year, China's total import and export of services reached 3666.91 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.1%. Knowledge intensive service trade accounted for 43.2% of the total import and export of services, with exports reaching 915.74 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.1%. The quality and competitiveness of service trade development have further improved.
Currently, the 2023 China International Trade in Services Fair is being held in Beijing.We believe that China's hosting of the Fair for Trade in Services against the backdrop of weak global economic recovery can not only promote the development of the global service industry and trade in services, but also make important contributions to the global economic recovery.
Special expert for this issue: Zhu Caihua, Institute of International Economics, University of International Business and Economics
