Sharing the Historical Opportunities of Global Service Trade Development Together
"Let us jointly uphold the hard won free trade and multilateral trading system, share the historical opportunities of global service trade development, and work together to create a better and more prosperous future for the world."
Service trade is an important component of international trade, and the service industry is an important field of international economic and trade cooperation. In recent years, a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation has emerged, driving the strong rise of digital technology, promoting deep integration of industries, and leading the vigorous development of the service economy. Data shows that the total global service trade in 2022 reached 7 trillion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 15%. China's service trade maintains rapid growth and demonstrates strong resilience. In 2022, the total import and export volume of services reached nearly 6 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%, reaching a historic high and ranking second in the world for the ninth consecutive year. The facts fully demonstrate that although the world economy lacks the driving force for recovery, global trade in services and cooperation in the service industry are deepening, and the process of digitization, intelligence, and greening is accelerating. New technologies, new formats, and new models are emerging one after another, injecting strong impetus into promoting economic globalization, restoring global economic vitality, and enhancing the resilience of world economic development.
Currently, the century long changes are accelerating, with multiple challenges and crises intertwined and overlapping. The world economic recovery is difficult, and promoting recovery requires consensus and cooperation. History has repeatedly proven that the world economy thrives when it is open, and declines when it is closed. The longer the road is obstructed and the more difficult it is, the more we must uphold the concept of openness, inclusiveness, and win-win cooperation. We must use openness to alleviate the difficulties of development, the power of cooperation, the momentum of innovation, and openness to seek the benefits of sharing. We must firmly grasp the historical opportunities of global service trade development, firmly promote the construction of an open world economy, and ensure that the achievements of development benefit people of all countries more and more fairly. Since its establishment in 2012, the China International Fair for Trade in Services has attracted over 600000 exhibitors from 196 countries and regions. The theme of this year's Fair for Trade in Services is "Openness leads development, cooperation, and win-win future", which aims to make good use of the historical opportunities of global service trade development, continue to play an important platform role in expanding openness, deepening cooperation, and leading innovation, and gather consensus, confidence, and strength for the development of the global service industry and service trade.
On the new journey, we will expand the global network of high standard free trade zones, improve the standardization level of service trade, steadily expand institutional openness, strengthen the integration of development strategies and cooperation initiatives with other countries, cultivate more economic cooperation growth points, accelerate the cultivation of digital new drivers of service trade, support the service industry to play a greater role in green development, promote the integration of service trade with modern service industry, high-end manufacturing industry, and modern agriculture, accelerate the construction of a strong domestic market, actively expand high-quality service imports, and provide new development momentum for the world with the opportunity of China's large market, and provide more and better Chinese services to the world with high-quality development. We firmly believe that all countries and parties, together with China, will work together to promote inclusive development through service openness, linkage and integration through service cooperation, cultivate development momentum through service innovation, and create a better future through service sharing. By injecting new momentum and making new contributions to the development of global service trade, we will definitely jointly promote the stable and solid recovery of the world economy.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of China's reform and opening up. Looking back at the past, moving forward in the logic of historical progress, developing in the trend of the times, China's continuous expansion and opening up have activated the surging spring tide of China's development, and also activated a pool of spring water for the world economy; Looking forward to the future, China will continue to promote high-level opening up, comprehensively promote Chinese path to modernization with high-quality development, and provide new opportunities for countries to open up and cooperate. "Those who act alone are difficult to rise, and those who act alone are easy to follow." Let us walk together on the great road of the world, share opportunities for the development of service trade, promote global economic recovery and growth, build an open world economy, and jointly create a better and more prosperous future for the world.