The high-end value-added business is expanding day by day, and the industry is turning to R&D and design-service outsourcing has become an important force in stabilizing foreign trade
In recent years, the rapid development of service outsourcing in my country has played an increasingly important role in stabilizing foreign trade, stabilizing employment and promoting industrial transformation and upgrading. Facing the complex and volatile international situation, the development of service outsourcing faces opportunities and challenges. Experts believe that accelerating digital transformation and moving towards high-quality development are important ideas for opening up a new situation.
In the first half of the year, my country's service outsourcing contract value and execution value achieved double growth. According to data recently released by the Ministry of Commerce, the value of service outsourcing contracts undertaken by Chinese enterprises in the first half of the year was 6.79.53 billion yuan, and the execution was 450.13 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.9% and 10.9% respectively. Among them, the contract value of offshore service outsourcing was 403.83 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.8%, and the execution value was 267.73 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.4%, becoming an important force in stabilizing foreign trade.
Service outsourcing refers to companies that provide certain links or processes in their production and operation processes to professional companies, thereby reducing costs, improving efficiency and giving full play to their respective advantages. Experts said that in recent years, the rapid development of service outsourcing in my country has played an increasingly important role in stabilizing foreign trade, stabilizing employment, and promoting industrial transformation and upgrading. Facing the complex and volatile international situation, the development of service outsourcing faces opportunities and challenges. Accelerating digital transformation and moving towards high-quality development are important ideas for opening up a new situation.
Significant increase in scale
Since the beginning of this year, due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic and other factors, the development of traditional service trade has been hindered, but service outsourcing has bucked the trend. It is not only the main way to realize the export of productive services, but also a new engine for promoting the stability and sustainable development of China's service trade under the epidemic. .
The rapid development of service outsourcing is manifested in the continuous growth of scale. At the same time, industry highlights are frequently seen: emerging digital services and productive services such as R&D and maintenance are growing rapidly. In the first half of the year, emerging digital services such as cloud computing services, artificial intelligence services, and blockchain technology services The execution value of offshore services increased by 186.3% year-on-year; key markets such as the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, etc. rose steadily, and the execution value of offshore outsourcing from countries related to the “Belt and Road” was 72.32 billion yuan, an increase of 6.3% year-on-year; the development of various key regions was misaligned The pattern of development is gradually taking shape; private enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises are the main development forces.
"In the first half of the year, due to the need to fight the epidemic, the international community's demand for digital products and services, biomedicine research and development, inspection and testing and other fields has increased significantly, providing opportunities for relevant Chinese companies to undertake offshore business and expand international market shares." China Services Zheng Wei, an associate researcher of the Outsourcing Research Center, said that China has certain comparative advantages in the fields of production services such as biomedical research and development, inspection and testing, and emerging digital services, laying an important foundation for enterprises to carry out international cooperation, promoting the growth of digital services, and promoting The development of productive service outsourcing business accelerated.
Since the second quarter, the domestic epidemic has been effectively controlled, and the orderly resumption of work and production has also provided an important guarantee for the continuous growth of service outsourcing business. In June, the value of service outsourcing contracts undertaken by Chinese enterprises was 212.64 billion yuan, and the executed value was 139.02 billion yuan, an increase of 33.7% and 15% respectively year-on-year.
The steady development of service outsourcing is also closely related to a series of favorable policies issued by relevant departments. In January, the Ministry of Commerce and other eight departments issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Accelerating Transformation and Upgrading of Service Outsourcing", from accelerating the process of digital transformation, promoting the development of key areas, building a global service network system, strengthening talent training, cultivating and expanding market players, and promoting trade The six aspects of facilitation have pointed out the development direction for the service outsourcing industry.
Help upgrade and drive employment
As an important part of the high-quality economic development, service outsourcing is the inevitable result of the refined division of labor and large-scale development of society, and is of great significance to industrial upgrading, foreign trade growth and employment expansion.
In recent years, China’s service outsourcing has shown a leaping trend towards the high end of the value chain, and the high-end value-added services undertaken have been expanding, which has promoted the development of the industry in areas such as R&D and design, data analysis and mining, and system design services, and has also prompted many service outsourcing companies to start promoting Digital transformation, using big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other new technologies to innovate service outsourcing formats and models.
"Through service outsourcing, China continues to extend its global industrial division of labor to high value-added service links such as R&D, design, consulting, supply chain management, and professional services at both ends of the'smiling curve'." Xian Guoyi, Director of the Service and Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said previously , Service outsourcing plays an important role in promoting the quality and efficiency of the manufacturing industry, and realizing the leap from Chinese manufacturing to Chinese creation.
In terms of absorbing employment, service outsourcing plays an obvious role in stabilizing the employment of college students and expanding employment space. Statistics show that as of the end of 2019, there were 11.72 million employees in my country's service outsourcing industry, of which 7.501 million had a university (including junior college) or higher education, accounting for 64% of the total number of employees.
Li Xilin, a researcher at the Institute of International Service Trade of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the transformation and upgrading of service outsourcing has put forward greater demand for creative talents such as R&D, design, management, and consulting, and expanded the talent team in emerging industries. At the same time, new models such as crowdsourcing, cloud outsourcing, and platform subcontracting continue to emerge and develop rapidly, providing young people, especially college students, with new flexible employment channels and promoting the development of emerging employment forms such as the "gig economy".
New situation requires new ideas
Talking about the development of service outsourcing in the second half of the year, experts said that my country's service outsourcing still faces great challenges.
From the external environment, the global epidemic is still spreading, trade protectionism is on the rise, instability and uncertainty are greater, and the international market demand may continue to decline, which will bring Chinese service outsourcing companies to undertake offshore business Negative Effects.
From the internal environment, the current international competitiveness of my country's service outsourcing industry is still relatively weak. Wang Xiaohong, deputy director of the Information Department of the China International Economic Exchange Center, analyzed that my country's service outsourcing companies are mainly small and medium-sized, and the overall benefits and the degree of internationalization need to be further improved. In recent years, the labor cost and the cost of financing, land, capital and other factors of service outsourcing enterprises have been rising rapidly, which has caused a heavy burden on enterprises. In addition, the serious shortage of mid-to-high-end talents has affected the ability of enterprises to undertake international service outsourcing, especially the competitiveness of undertaking high-end value chain businesses.
However, there are opportunities beyond the challenges. Experts believe that as the domestic epidemic prevention and control situation tends to stabilize, and the resumption of work and production is fully promoted, the service outsourcing business will continue to improve, and it is expected to maintain its growth momentum throughout the year.
Zheng Wei said that the current international community’s demand for digital products and services is still increasing, and companies can seize the opportunity to open up the international market. Under the influence of the epidemic, there are still greater uncertainties in the markets of developed countries in Europe and the United States, which also forces my country's service outsourcing companies to get rid of their dependence on the inherent market and actively explore diversified market demands.
To turn crises into opportunities, new ideas are needed to deal with the new situation. Wang Xiaohong suggested that in the future, it is necessary to steadily advance the supply-side structural reforms, accelerate service outsourcing technology innovation, service model innovation, and institutional mechanism innovation, promote the development of service outsourcing standardization, digitalization, intelligence, and integration, and build on-shore and offshore interaction, and A new pattern for the development of the service outsourcing industry integrating the central and western regions. (Economic Daily, China Economic Net reporter Li Hualin)