Chi Fulin： The Service Trade Fair has become an important platform for the world to share China’s service market.
The 2021 China International Fair for Trade in Services will be held in the National Convention Center and Shougang Park from September 2 to 7.
Wang Bingnan, Vice Minister of Commerce, said that the epidemic in 2020 had a great impact on global service trade, but it also accelerated the digitalization process of service trade and brought new opportunities for the structural adjustment of service trade and the development of new service trade. China’s service trade has taken the lead in restoring the growth trend in the world.
What are the characteristics of China’s service trade in recent years? What changes will the digital economy bring to the development of global service trade? What are the opportunities and challenges for service trade in the post-epidemic era? Chi Fulin, president of China (Hainan) Reform and Development Research Institute, said that with the upgrading of consumption structure and industrial structure, there is still much room for the development of China’s service industry. In the next 5 to 10 years, the proportion of China’s service industry may increase to more than 55%.
Chi Fulin, Dean of China (Hainan) Reform and Development Research Institute. Photo courtesy of respondents
Deepening the market-oriented reform of service industry with institutional opening
Beijing News:What are the characteristics of China’s service trade development in recent years?
Chi Fulin:First of all, the growth rate of service trade is fast. From 2014 to 2019, China’s service trade volume increased from 3.7 trillion yuan to 5.4 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 7.8%, which is 2.2 times the growth rate of goods trade. In 2020, affected by the epidemic, China’s service trade decreased by 15.7% year-on-year, which was about 4 percentage points lower than the world average. Excluding travel services, China’s service trade will achieve a positive growth of 2.9% in 2020.
Secondly, the service trade structure is optimized. In 2019, China’s trade in knowledge-intensive services reached 1.9 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%, which was 8 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of service trade. In 2020, China’s knowledge-intensive service trade increased by 8.3% year-on-year, accounting for 44.5% of the total service trade.
The service trade deficit also showed a downward trend. In 2018, China’s service trade deficit reached a maximum of 1.7 trillion yuan, accounting for 32.6% of the service trade in the same period. Since then, it has gradually declined, reaching 1.5 trillion yuan in 2019, accounting for 27.7%; In 2020, it was 692.93 billion yuan, accounting for 15.2%.
Digital trade has become a highlight. In 2020, the scale of China’s digital trade reached 1.46 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.5%; The proportion of digital trade in overall service trade increased from 22.3% in 2019 to 25.6% in 2020.
Beijing News:From the development trend, how to promote the development of China’s service trade in the future?
Chi Fulin:China’s service-oriented consumption has great room for improvement. In recent years, the demand for service trade has also increased significantly due to the upgrading of China’s residents’ consumption structure. It can be said that China’s economic transformation and upgrading has great potential for the development of service trade.
On the one hand, the demand for service trade is obviously enhanced by the upgrading of consumption structure. By 2025, the proportion of service consumption in China will reach about 52.5%. On the other hand, the demand for service trade has increased significantly due to the upgrading of industrial structure. There is still much room for the development of China’s service industry. In the next 5 to 10 years, the proportion of China’s service industry may increase to more than 55%.
In addition, China’s industrial upgrading and service trade development will be deeply integrated. For example, the digitalization of service industry and the service of digital industry will help promote the development of service trade to the high end of value chain.
In my opinion, under the background of direct integration of service market opening and service trade development, the key to forming a new pattern of high-level opening to the outside world with emphasis on service trade lies in deepening the market-oriented reform of service industry with institutional opening. Institutional opening has two outstanding characteristics: first, the internal unity of reform and opening up. The focus of expanding opening-up extends to domestic rules and standards, so that opening-up and reform can be directly integrated. The second is to promote deep-seated market-oriented reforms. The docking of rules and standards will make an important breakthrough in the reform of key and basic deep-level systems and mechanisms such as the opening of service market and the basic position of competition policy, and promote the establishment of a high-standard open market economic system.
Trade Fair will help the development of global service trade.
Beijing News:What role will the 2021 Service Trade Fair play in the development of China’s service trade?
Chi Fulin:The Service Trade Fair has become an important platform for the world to share China’s service market and help the development of global service trade. For example, in 2020, despite the epidemic and other factors, international organizations, embassies in China, overseas business associations, institutions and enterprises from 148 countries and regions around the world participated in the service trade fair. Institutions and enterprises participated in the top 30 countries and regions of service trade, and a total of 18,000 domestic and foreign enterprises and institutions registered online and offline to participate in the exhibition.
At the same time, the service trade fair has become an important window for China to expand the opening of service trade. In his speech at the Global Service Trade Summit of the 2020 International Trade Fair, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader pointed out that he supported the establishment of a global service trade alliance, Beijing’s policy of building a comprehensive demonstration zone for expanding and opening up the national service industry, and the establishment of a free trade pilot zone. At present, these measures have been implemented. In the future, with the expansion of China’s service trade scale, the Service Trade Association will play a more active role in promoting the growth of global service trade and promoting service trade cooperation.
Beijing News:This year’s service trade fair set up a digital service area for the first time. What changes will the digital economy bring to the development of global service trade?
Chi Fulin:Digital trade shows a rapid development trend. According to statistics, at present, more than 50% of global service trade has been digitized, and more than 12% of cross-border physical trade has been realized through digital platforms. With the rise of Internet platforms such as cross-border e-commerce, the rapid development of digital tourism, digital education, digital medical care and digital finance has changed the previous service trade model based on commercial existence and the movement of natural persons.
From China’s situation, from 2015 to 2019, the scale of China’s digital delivery service trade increased from US$ 179.4 billion to US$ 271.8 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 10.9%, which was 1.5 percentage points faster than the overall growth rate of service trade; The proportion of service trade increased from 27.4% to 34.7%, an increase of 7.3 percentage points.
In 2021, with the theme of "Digital opens the future and service promotes development", the Service Trade Fair will set up a special exhibition area for digital services for the first time, and will also hold a digital trade summit forum and related professional conferences to fully display digital and intelligent new technologies, new models, new formats and new achievements, and build a global digital trade exchange, display and trading platform; Discussions and exchanges will also be held around hot topics in service fields such as big data and technology and finance. This will have a great impact on strengthening the cooperation and exchange of digital technology, trying to eliminate the "digital divide" and promoting the digitalization of service trade.
Take the lead in establishing the "China Standard" in advantageous areas such as cross-border e-commerce
Beijing News:How do you think China should participate in the formulation of global digital trade rules?
Chi Fulin:Digital trade has become a new field in the reconstruction of global economic and trade rules. After the epidemic is estimated, the world will accelerate into the digital age, and the competition for standards and rules in the field of digital service trade, such as market access, cross-border data flow and data localization, will become increasingly fierce.
China should rely on the big market of digital technology application to win new advantages in international digital economic cooperation and competition. It is necessary to significantly increase the proportion of digital trade. In 2020, the scale of China’s digital trade reached 1.46 trillion yuan, but it accounted for only 25.6% of the total service trade, which was far from the global average of 52%.
Improve the digital trade standard system and policy and legal system. For example, take the opportunity of promoting the standardization of service industry and join the regulatory standards in the field of digital trade as soon as possible; Based on "E-commerce Law" and "Network Security Law", we will refine and improve relevant laws and regulations to provide legal protection for improving the supervision of digital service trade.
Create a new highland and high-level rules "stress testing ground" for digital trade opening. For example, in Shanghai, Hainan and other open highlands, under the premise of ensuring the safe and controllable data flow, we will actively promote a small number of pilot enterprises in the experimental area to achieve data flow compliance with specific foreign areas, expand the opening of data fields, and innovate the design of security systems.
At the same time, pay more attention to the negotiation of digital trade rules in bilateral and regional free trade agreements. For example, further deepen the refinement and upgrade of digital trade rules in RCEP; Accelerate the process of building the "Digital Silk Road" and take the lead in establishing the "China Standard" in advantageous areas such as cross-border e-commerce and electronic payment.
Beijing News:What are the opportunities and challenges for service trade in the post-epidemic era?
Chi Fulin:In the post-epidemic era, the development of service trade is likely to face greater protectionist challenges. In recent years, trade protectionism and unilateralism have risen and threatened the global free trade process. In the context of the epidemic, isolationism, unilateralism, nationalism and trade protectionism are more prevalent, among which the number of measures restricting the development of service trade such as national security, technical standards, intellectual property protection, preferential purchase of local services, and restrictions on the export of technical services has further increased.
But at the same time, the epidemic has also brought opportunities for the development of service trade, such as the epidemic has accelerated the development of digital trade; The wide application of digital technologies, such as telemedicine, shared platform and collaborative office, has given birth to a new format and model of service trade. It is estimated that by 2025, the proportion of global digital trade in service trade will be close to 60%.
In the post-epidemic era, intra-regional service trade and digital trade are expected to achieve rapid development, and bilateral and regional service trade liberalization and facilitation are expected to achieve important breakthroughs. At the same time, the superposition of epidemic situation and the fourth industrial revolution accelerated the digital transformation of global supply chain, which led to the rapid development of digital trade.
Beijing News reporter Chen Lin
Editor Bai Shuang proofreads Chen Yanyan.
Reporting/feedback