China Opens Int’l Services Trade Fair, Vows Wider Opening-up
The 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services opened on Friday, presenting an opportunity to strengthen open co- operation in the service sector and invigorate global economic recovery.
Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng declared the opening of the first major international economic and trade event held both online and offline by China since the COVID-19 outbreak, at the China National Convention Centre in Beijing.
Themed “Global Services, Shared Prosperity,” the six-day fair has one comprehensive exhibition area and eight special exhibition areas.
A total of 18,000 enterprises and institutions from 148 countries and regions and about 100,000 people have registered for the fair. Overseas guests, exhibitors and merchants will mainly attend online exhibitions and all types of entities in China will mainly participate in offline exhibitions.
The event includes the Global Trade in Services Summit, four summit forums and more than 100 industry seminars and forums. It covers service trade of culture, tourism, finance, sports, robotics, education and 5G. The fair will release more than 30 industry development reports, indexes and rankings, including an action guide for urban tourism
recovery amid COVID-19.
The fair demonstrates China’s confidence and determination to unswervingly promote its opening-up policy, and sends positive signals to uphold economic globalisation and strengthen international co-operation, according to Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Bingnan.
China is an important contributor to the growth of global trade in services. According to statistics, China’s services exports have grown at an average annual rate of nine per cent in the past 15 years, 2.9 percentage points higher than the global average. In the same period, China’s services imports totalled US$4.5 trillion (FJ$9.52 trillion), contributing 12.9 per cent to the growth of global services imports.