People's Daily Online, Beijing, August 6th. A few days ago, the head of the Service Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce introduced the overall situation of China's service trade in the first half of 2020. The person in charge said that the scale of my country's service trade declined in the first half of the year, and the overall trend was stabilized. Service exports performed significantly better than imports, the trade deficit decreased, and the proportion of knowledge-intensive service trade increased. From January to June, my country's total service imports and exports totaled 222.728 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), a year-on-year decrease of 14.7%. Among them, exports were 912.79 billion yuan, down 2.2%; imports were 1,314.49 billion yuan, down 21.7%. Mainly present the following characteristics:
The deficit in trade in services has been substantially reduced. From January to June, the decline in my country's service exports stabilized, and the decline in imports increased. The decline in exports was 19.5 percentage points lower than imports, which led to a 46.1% decline in the service trade deficit to 407.11 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 344.01 billion yuan.
The proportion of knowledge-intensive service trade increased. From January to June, my country's knowledge-intensive service imports and exports amounted to 974.43 billion yuan, an increase of 9.2%, accounting for 43.7% of the total service imports and exports, an increase of 9.6 percentage points. Among them, knowledge-intensive service exports amounted to 512.87 billion yuan, an increase of 9.7%, accounting for 56.2% of the total service exports, an increase of 6.1 percentage points; the areas where exports grew faster were intellectual property royalties, insurance services, telecommunications, computers, and information services. , Respectively increased by 37.2%, 18.7%, 15.2%. Imports of knowledge-intensive services amounted to 461.56 billion yuan, an increase of 8.6%, accounting for 35.1% of total service imports, an increase of 9.8%; the areas where imports grew faster were telecommunications, computer and information services, and financial services, which increased by 31.1% and 15.7 respectively %.
Imports and exports of travel services fell sharply. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, all countries have adopted strict measures to restrict the cross-border movement of people, and the import and export of travel services worldwide has been significantly affected. From January to June, my country's travel service imports and exports were 558.08 billion yuan, down 42.9%, of which exports fell 45.0% and imports fell 42.6%, which were the main factors leading to the decline in service trade. Excluding travel services, my country's service imports and exports increased by 2.1% in the first half of the year, of which exports increased by 3.7% and imports increased by 0.5%.
The person in charge of the Department of Trade in Services of the Ministry of Commerce stated that, at present, the new crown pneumonia epidemic is still spreading globally, the world economy is severely recessed, international demand has shrunk sharply, and the development of my country's service trade is facing a severe situation. In the second half of the year, the Ministry of Commerce will actively deepen reforms in accordance with the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, promote the comprehensive deepening of service trade innovation and development of pilot cities and service outsourcing demonstration cities, expand characteristic service export bases, and promote high-quality development of service trade; further expand and open up. Accelerate the formulation of a national negative list of cross-border trade in services, and successfully host the 2020 Service Trade Fair under the normalized conditions of epidemic prevention and control, inject new vitality into the development of service trade; accelerate innovation and vigorously develop emerging service trade such as digital trade and online exhibitions , And make every effort to improve the quality and efficiency of service trade. (Li Qiaochu)