Nation’s services imports to be 10% of world’s total
The value of C hina’s ser vices imports is expected to hit $2.5 trillion in the coming five years, providing a broad and stable mark et for global industrial and supply chains, government of ficials said on Friday.
This will account for over 10 percent of the world ’s total in this field in the ne xt five years, said C hen Chunjiang, directorgeneral of the department of trade in services and commercial services of the Ministry of Commerce.
Outbound tra vel is projec ted to exceed $1 trillion during this period. Imports of digital ser vices that include charges for the use of intellectual proper ty, telecommunications, computers, information, financial and insurance services as well as other businesses are expected to exceed $1.3 trillion, Chen said at a ne ws conference during the ongoing third C hina International Import Expo in Shanghai.
The official’s remarks came after President X i Jinping said at the opening ceremony of the expo that the countr y will introduce a negative list for crossborder ser vices trade and keep improving its business environment.
Trade in ser vices covers, among other sec tors, commerce, communications, transportation of people, construction and related engineering, finance, entertainment, culture and sports, tourism, education and the environment.
Even though the COVID 19 pandemic has brought challenges to economic globalization, a ne w round of scientific re volution and industrial transformation is springing up. This will push the rise of digital technolog y, promote indepth integration of industries and pa ve the way for the services economy to flourish, Chen said.
China will relax foreign shareholding restric tions on valueadded telecommunications ser vices, commercial services and transpor tation to invigorate the modern services industry, he added.
As China is accelerating the pace in forming a new pattern of development dominated by “dualcirculation”, with domestic and international mark ets complementing each other , Gao Y an, chairwoman of the Bei jingbased China Council for the Promotion of
International Trade, said that the nation has more space to make further efforts to relax market access for the services industry, expand high quality services imports and benefit the world while meeting demand at home.
China to date has established trade in services ties with more than 200 countries and regions, and se t up collaboration mechanisms for trade in services with 14 countries, including Brazil, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Germany, India, Japan and Singapore, according to the ministry.
Services imports from these 1 4 partners added up to $448.8 billion between 2017 and 2019, with an average annual growth of 8.4 percent, which is notably higher than the average annual growth rate of China’ s total services imports of 3.5 percent during the same period.
“With China’s further openingup and strong focus on the services trade, we are more confident that the country’ s growth and development journey will continue ,” said Keith Grif fiths, chairman and global design principal of Aedas, one of the world’ s largest architectural design companies by sales revenue.
Forest Cao, general manager of the Shanghai branch of Pacific International Lines, a large Singaporean logistics services provider, said he sees significant future development potential in the nation’ s services trade. Apart from meeting Chinese exporters’ demand for ocean shipping , the company plans to add investment in the landside business, including warehouses and freight trains supporting facilities in Qinzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and in Xi’ an, Shaanxi province, over the next five years, Cao said.
To handle the rapid development of technology trade, Chen, from the Ministry of Commerce, said the ministry will work closely with other government departments to speed up the adjustment of the Catalog of Technologies Prohibited or Restricted from Export.
“In addition to retaining the necessary technical items related to national and environmental security, the role of mark et regulation will be more prominent, ” he said .“Technical projects that are prohibited or restricted from import will be compressed to create a better environment for the free flow of technologies across borders.”