New Observations on the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services: Global Service Trade Digitalization is Accelerating

Wear lightweight virtual reality glasses and instantly shuttle to the metaverse world, exploring the beautiful scenery of Gulangyu Island 2500 kilometers away; By clicking on the screen, you can interact in real-time with digital figures who embody various roles such as lawyers and teachers; Stepping on a bicycle and engaging in a fast-paced "digital intelligence" competition with friends on a simulated track... At the 2023 China International Trade in Services Fair, various new technologies and applications were overwhelming.

On September 3rd, at a special exhibition on telecommunications, computers, and information services, children were experiencing the metaverse cultural and tourism project. Photo by Shen Jiaping, a journalist from People's Daily Online

In recent years, China's service trade has maintained a growth trend. Data shows that in 2022, China's total import and export of services reached nearly 6 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%, reaching a historic high in scale, ranking second in the world for nine consecutive years, second only to the United States.

With the accelerated innovation of technologies such as 5G, AI, big data, and cloud computing, the proportion of emerging service trade characterized by knowledge and technology intensity is steadily increasing. In the first half of this year, China's knowledge intensive service trade accounted for over 43% of the total import and export of services. This year's Fair for Trade in Services further highlights the leading role of innovation, opens a window of opportunity for the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy, and promotes the digital transformation of global trade in services to accelerate.

Innovative Technology and New Appearance "Together Brighten Up"

The 2023 Service Trade Fair is a "big runway" for the "new face" of digital technology. Special and innovative achievements in chip technology, quantum measurement and control, satellite remote sensing, and other fields have made brilliant appearances, and new products in artificial intelligence, financial technology, healthcare, and other fields have all been launched.

Making Life Smarter - Bank of China creates a "Digital RMB Avenue" that allows for an immersive experience of the interactive application of digital RMB in online shopping, cultural tourism, transportation and other scenarios; Intel's restaurant self-service settlement solution based on artificial intelligence technology only requires placing meals at the self-service settlement counter, swiping faces and scanning codes, and payment settlement can be achieved in a few seconds; Jiangling Motors and Wenyuan Zhixing have teamed up to launch China's first L4 level autonomous freight vehicle, which has a 360 degree blind spot perception ability to make smart freight more efficient and safe; China Mobile's "Nine Days · Sea Computing", China Unicom's "Honghu", China Telecom's TeleChat, Go Out and Ask "Sequence Monkey", Zhipu AI's "ChatGLM" and other major models compete on the same platform, providing intelligent services based on different life scenarios.

On September 2nd, the audience learned and experienced a self-service catering settlement solution based on artificial intelligence technology. Photo by Shen Jiaping, a journalist from People's Daily Online

Make cultural and tourism more "vibrant" - At the special exhibition on cultural and tourism services, the integration of culture and technology showcases the "most beautiful central axis", attracting continuous praise from the audience. Through techniques such as naked eye 3D, satellite remote sensing, digital twins, and cloud rendering, the magnificent scenery of Tongzhou ancient city and canals during the Ming and Qing dynasties has been restored and recreated.

"Making medical care more" precise "-" This is really stable and accurate! "The audience couldn't help but admire the stable and precise peeling of quail eggshells by the surgical robot. This is a surgical robot equipped with nickel titanium alloy snake shaped surgical instruments exhibited by Beijing Shurui Robotics Co., Ltd. It has been successfully applied in multiple clinical surgeries.

On September 2nd, at the Achievement Exhibition of Expanding Service Trade and Service Industry Opening up, surgical robots attracted a large number of visitors to stop. Photo by People's Daily reporter Weng Qiyu

The New Frontier of Digital Trade "Show Muscles"

"More and more 'foreign traders' are using digitalization to go global with excavators from Shandong, yoga suits from Zhejiang, and kitchenware from Guangzhou." On the Alibaba International Station booth, staff told reporters that the company's full chain AI foreign trade products have multiple functions such as product distribution and management, market analysis, customer reception, real-time video chat translation, and enterprise management. Through VR interactive scenes and other technologies, they can help foreign trade enterprises "sell globally from home".

With the accelerated innovation of technologies such as big data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, the digitalization process of China's service trade is further accelerating. Jiang Xiaojuan, President of the China Society of Industrial Economics, Professor at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and former Deputy Secretary of the State Council, stated that China's manufacturing industry has a complete range of categories, a long industrial chain, and a dense cluster of small and medium-sized enterprises. The development of e-commerce has driven the development of the domestic real economy's long chain and large scale.

Data shows that in 2022, China's import and export volume of digitally deliverable services reached 2.51 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.8%, ranking fifth in the world and reaching a new historical high in scale. In the first half of this year, the scale of digitalizable service import and export in China continued to grow by 12.3%, which is 3.8 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of service import and export.

"By utilizing digital technology, some services that were originally not tradable can become tradable services, triggering a 'tradable revolution' in services and further increasing the scale of service trade." Zhu Fulin, Deputy Researcher at the International Trade and Economic Cooperation Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said that China's digital transformation of service trade has further improved the level of knowledge and technology in service trade, while effectively giving birth to new models and formats of service trade such as telemedicine and crowdsourcing.

Zhu Fulin stated that in recent years, the digitalization of China's service exports has developed rapidly, and the degree of digitalization of imports has maintained a steady upward trend. This is due to the increasingly favorable digital policy environment for service trade in China, as well as the constantly exploring innovative development models for service trade.

In April this year, the Ministry of Commerce and three other departments selected the first batch of 12 national digital service export bases based on their experience and practices in improving new infrastructure construction, creating a digital service industry ecosystem, optimizing public services, and improving digital service export statistics, and replicated and promoted them nationwide.

"Service Trade Agreement" New Cooperation "Creating the Future"

On September 2nd, with the gradual opening of a scaled down version of Tower Bridge in London, the UK Pavilion, the guest of honor of this year's Fair for Trade in Services, was officially unveiled, showcasing the new vitality and diversity of British brands in creative, educational, technological, healthcare, and financial services fields.

On September 2nd, at the UK booth located at the National Convention Center, children were experiencing exotic scenery through VR glasses. Photo by People's Daily reporter Weng Qiyu

The "Agreement on Trade in Services", seize opportunities together. This year's Service Trade Fair saw over 2200 companies participating offline, and 75 countries and international organizations holding exhibitions under the name of governments or headquarters. The overall internationalization rate exceeded 20%.

Lu Rui, Deputy Minister of Trade to China and Counselor General of the British Embassy in China, stated that there is enormous potential for cooperation between China and the UK in the field of service trade, and efforts will be made to deepen two-way trade and investment.

Deloitte, which has been attending the Service Trade Fair for five years, has brought digital achievements such as a value chain carbon emission management platform and Deloitte's smart tax system solution this year. Deloitte China North China Managing Partner Wang Tuoxuan stated that he hopes to seize the opportunity of the Fair for Trade in Services and work with various ecological partners to "reconstruct a better future" in digital technology, innovation, talent, and other areas.

"The integration and development of digital technology and trade is one of the important trends in economic globalization." Zhu Fulin said that currently, international economic and trade rules are undergoing deep restructuring, and international rules for service trade can no longer fully adapt to the new development needs of service trade. We should accelerate the new round of negotiations on service trade, strive to form consensus as soon as possible, and continuously expand the high-level institutional opening of service trade.

At the same time, Zhu Fulin pointed out that driven by the "two wheels" of the binding RCEP and the open "the Belt and Road Initiative", China's service trade cooperation with countries and regions in the region has been deepening, and the future potential is unlimited.

He suggested that the next step is to create a business environment conducive to the innovative development of service trade, strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights in service trade, and provide various preferential support for large, medium, and small service trade enterprises to carry out service technology innovation. At the same time, we will further strengthen the integration and development of service trade and physical industries, and continuously eliminate institutional barriers that hinder the innovative development of service trade models and formats.