Opening-up injects new impetus into global trade in services

Despite the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in many cities, the teetering global economic recovery and the headwinds economic globalization has encountered, China’s service trade has still made an outstanding performance in the first half of this year, with imports and exports of services totaling 2.89 trillion yuan ($427.88 billion), up 21.6 percent year-on-year.

In the first half of this year, the growth rate of China’s service exports was 5.7 percentage points higher than that of its imports, driving the service trade deficit down by 34.3 percent to 79.19 billion yuan.

For a long time, travel services have been the reason for China’s biggest trade deficit in services. In the short term, restrictions on cross-border mobility because of the pandemic are to blame for the sharp decline in China’s service trade deficit. However, as new growth drivers in the service sector have been gradually stimulated and export competitiveness has improved, China’s service trade deficit is expected to gradually decrease.

The good performance of trade in services shows that China’s service sector enjoys strong resilience. In 2021, the added value of China’s service industry increased by 8.2 percent year-on-year, accounting for 53.3 percent of the gross domestic product. At the same time, the new generation of information technology has greatly promoted the trade in services, which, along with the continuous integration of manufacturing and service industries and the marked improvement in the quality and efficiency of service supply, has laid a solid foundation for the coordinated development of the trade in services.

A series of measures taken by China in recent years, including the implementation of policies to promote innovations in the trade in services, the expanded openingup of the service sector, the establishment of a negative list management system for cross-border services trade, the greater efforts to develop digital trade, and the expanding of the service industry market access have all contributed to the increase of the country’s trade in services.

Trade in services has increasingly become a new engine of China’s foreign trade. China has remained steadfast in opening itself up wider and actively cultivated new competitive advantages in its trade in services.

The 2022 China International Fair for Trade in Services is less than a month away, and China’s commitment to opening-up will inject new impetus into the global trade in services.