According to statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce a few days ago, in the first October of this year, my country’s service trade continued to maintain a good growth momentum. The total value of service imports and exports was 4198.03 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.7%; in October, the total service imports and exports were 413.97 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24%.
Keep growing
Since the beginning of this year, my country’s service trade has improved compared with last year. Except for travel service trade, most other types of service trade are growing. Among them, in March this year, my country’s service trade growth rate turned positive for the first time since the epidemic, and transportation services have become the fastest growing area. “In the first 10 months, a large proportion of the year-on-year increase in trade in services came from trade in transportation services, which has a lot to do with the increase in international shipping demand after the outbreak, the decline in operational efficiency, and the increase in prices.” Associate School of Economics, Beijing International Studies University Chief Luo Libin said.
At the same time, the proportion of knowledge-intensive service trade maintained an upward trend. In the first 10 months, my country’s knowledge-intensive service imports and exports amounted to 1,856.6 billion yuan, an increase of 13.3%, accounting for 44.2% of the total service imports and exports, an increase of 0.2%. Luo Libin said that knowledge-intensive service trade maintained a high growth rate before the outbreak, and the impact of the epidemic also moved some service trade that was originally completed through the movement of natural persons and consumption in different places to the Internet, reducing trade costs.
The good posture also comes from effective measures. Since the beginning of this year, a series of opening-up measures have added new impetus to the development of service trade. my country has steadily promoted the comprehensive deepening of the pilot service trade innovation and development, successively introduced policies and measures to support the high-quality development of characteristic service export bases, introduced the Hainan Free Trade Port’s cross-border service trade negative list, continuously promoted the reform and innovation of the free trade pilot zone, and successfully held the service trade International comprehensive exhibitions such as the China International Trade Fair and the China International Import Expo. “These measures have not only strongly promoted the export of advantageous services, but also expanded imports.” said Shu Yuting, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce.
In addition, in the first 10 months, my country’s service industry has generally maintained a recovery trend, which has provided strong support for the development of service trade. “Although the year-on-year growth rate of the service industry production index in October has slowed down, it is still accelerating from a two-year average. In October, the service industry production index increased by an average of 5.5% over the two years, 0.2 percentage points faster than the previous month.” Fu Linghui, spokesperson for the Bureau of Statistics, said.
“For the whole year, the total value of trade in services will continue to rise year-on-year, and the rate of increase is likely to exceed the previous October.” Luo Libin said.
Unprecedented opportunities
The person in charge of the Department of Trade in Services of the Ministry of Commerce said recently that the scale of my country’s service trade has been growing steadily, the structure has been significantly optimized, and reforms and innovations have been deepened. Service trade has increasingly become a new engine for foreign trade development and a new driving force for deepening opening up. The role is further enhanced.
From the perspective of favorable factors, the restructuring of the global value chain is accelerating, and the service links represented by R&D, finance, logistics, marketing, and branding have become more prominent in the global value chain.
Entering a new stage of development, the resilience, vitality and potential of my country’s domestic large-scale circular market constitute a strong support for the upgrading and expansion of service trade. The new generation of technological revolution led by digital technology has released tremendous vitality for the innovative development of service trade. my country has accelerated the pace of opening up to the outside world, injecting strong impetus into the opening up and expansion of service trade.
“The epidemic has accelerated the digitalization of trade in services.” Li Jun, director of the Institute of International Trade in Services of the Ministry of Commerce, said in an interview with a reporter from the Economic Daily that the epidemic has accelerated the development of digitization and intelligence in traditional service areas such as travel, logistics and transportation. For example, in the field of tourism, “non-contact” tourism products and services are provided through technological innovations such as digital technology, 5G and VR, and “cloud tourism” projects such as network virtual scenic spots, tourism + live broadcast, and smart maps continue to emerge, leading the development of smart tourism , Which also accelerates the growth of demand for cloud services. After the outbreak, more and more companies are accustomed to working online. For example, epidemic prevention and control, online education, and video conferencing are all SaaS services. According to Gartner analysis, the global cloud computing market represented by IaaS, PaaS and SaaS is expected to grow at an average growth rate of around 18% in the next few years.
Under the epidemic situation, the stability and safety of global industrial chains, supply chains, and value chains are more important, and the status of trade in productive services such as logistics and transportation, finance, intellectual property, and supply chain management serving the trade of goods and manufacturing has risen. “The status of trade in productive services has been greatly improved.” Li Jun said. According to statistics, at present, my country’s producer service trade accounts for nearly 80% of the total service trade. It is foreseeable that the fields closely integrated with manufacturing and trade in goods will also be important growth points that are worth looking forward to in the future.
Upgrade and transformation
Experts said that it should also be noted that the development of my country’s service trade also faces some challenges. On the one hand, the epidemic is still spreading around the world, international transportation prices have not seen any obvious signs of decline, and it is difficult to substantively loosen the travel service trade; on the other hand, some service trade areas are not open enough and international competitiveness is insufficient. The problems of unbalanced and insufficient development of service trade are still prominent, and the depth of reform, innovation ability, and development motivation are still insufficient.
During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, the continuous promotion of service trade reform, opening up and innovation is of great significance to accelerating the construction of a new development pattern and promoting the construction of a higher-level open economic system and a modern economic system. Recently, 24 departments including the Ministry of Commerce issued the “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Service Trade”, which clarified the key tasks and paths for the development of my country’s service trade in the future.
Li Jun said that in the context of my country’s becoming the world’s largest trading nation, trade in services is still a shortcoming. The “Plan” will promote high-quality trade development and build a strong trade country, and further play its role as a carrier of pilot projects and other development platforms. It is of great significance to further enhance the opening level and competitiveness of service trade, and to clarify the positioning and development direction of service trade in the new development pattern.
Experts said that the development of service trade is a systematic engineering, and there are still some issues worth noting in the implementation of the Plan. For example, in the future implementation of the plan, special attention should be paid to the coordination and linkage of service industry policies, open policies and service trade policies, including the integration of free trade policies. The pilot zone, the pilot expansion of the service industry, the construction of a free trade port and the innovative development of service trade are coordinated and planned as a whole. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen basic supporting facilities and create a good supporting environment and system for the development of service trade. In addition, in order to innovate the assessment and evaluation methods of service trade, consider using per capita and structural indicators such as service industry, cross-border service trade, and service industry investment for comprehensive evaluation. (Feng Qiyu, Economic Daily reporter)
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Post time: Dec-20-2021