In the first quarter, my country's service trade increased by 25.8% year-on-year. Experts expect pressure in the second quarter
China Central Broadcasting Network Beijing, May 6 (Reporter Tong Yatao) According to a report by the Voice of Economy of China Central Radio and Television Station, "World Finance and Economics", in the first quarter of this year, my country's service trade continued to grow rapidly.
The Ministry of Commerce announced on the 5th that in the first quarter, my country's import and export of services increased by 25.8% year-on-year, achieving a "good start".
Experts predict that my country's service trade will be under pressure in the second quarter, and traditional service trade will be greatly impacted.
In the face of the epidemic, digital service trade will become the focus of future development.
The export of intellectual property royalties grew rapidly in the first quarter
商务部数据显示，一季度，我国服务进出口总额14569.9亿元，同比增长25.8%；不仅高于货物贸易增幅，也超过大多数国家服务贸易增速。商务部研究院国际服务贸易研究所所长李俊认为：“一季度国内疫情防控到位，带动整体经济产业发展形势开局良好，GDP保持平稳增长，所以第一季度服务贸易保持比较快的增长态势。”
The epidemic has affected people's production and lifestyle.
In recent years, trade in services that can be delivered remotely and digitally, such as telecommunications, computer information services, has shown relatively strong resistance to shocks and has grown against the trend, especially knowledge-intensive service trade has maintained steady growth.
In the first quarter, the import and export of knowledge-intensive services reached 615.66 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.1%.
Among them, the areas with faster export growth are telecommunications, computer and information services, other business services, and intellectual property royalties.
Xing Houyuan, former director of China Service Outsourcing Research Center, pointed out that intellectual property royalties used to be an important source of my country's service trade deficit, but now the rapid growth of exports is a welcome change.
"This shows that the independent innovation capability of Chinese enterprises has been continuously enhanced, and enterprises have (more) independent intellectual property rights. While expanding the export of goods trade, they have also increased the export of intellectual property rights. At present, my country's intellectual property transaction costs have changed from a complete deficit in the past to Exports are growing rapidly at the moment.”
Insurance services increased by more than 1.3 times in the first quarter
It is worth noting that the fastest growing area of imports is insurance services, with a year-on-year growth rate of 134.9%, or more than 1.3 times.
In this regard, Li Jun explained that insurance services mainly include two aspects: "First, air transport insurance services, which include insurance service fees when tourists take flights and purchase air tickets when entering and leaving the country; the second is cargo insurance related to trade in goods. In the first quarter, my country's trade in goods maintained a double-digit growth trend, especially the import trade of bulk commodities grew rapidly, so the corresponding transportation insurance premiums also achieved substantial growth. In addition, the scale of insurance services is small and the base is low. In 2021 In the first quarter of this year, premiums were only more than 3 billion US dollars, and in the first quarter of this year, it was between 6 billion and 7 billion US dollars, resulting in a relatively fast growth rate.”
Travel services used to account for "half of the country's service trade import and export", but it has declined significantly in the face of the impact of the epidemic.
"Some recovery" has become the current status quo.
In the first quarter, my country's import and export of travel services increased by 12.6% year-on-year, of which exports fell by 15.3% and imports increased by 15.4%.
"In general, the increase in imports has led to the recovery of trade in travel services. 'Imports' refer to Chinese people traveling abroad. The largest source of tourists is related to business activities, indicating that China is more closely connected with the world." Xing Houyuan said.
Excluding travel services, my country's import and export of services in the first quarter increased by 28.4% year-on-year; compared with the same period in 2019, it increased significantly by 55.8%.
Digital service trade will become an important force to stabilize the development of service trade
However, in the second quarter, the epidemic situation in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities has been repeated, and traditional service trade such as travel services and transportation services, as well as business services related to manufacturing, have been affected.
Li Jun predicts that my country's service trade will be under greater pressure in the second quarter.
The development of emerging service trade forms such as digital trade will become an important force for stabilizing the development of service trade.
“We need to develop digitally deliverable service trade formats as much as possible, including digital services, software information, service outsourcing, financial services and other service trades that can be delivered digitally and do not require face-to-face delivery, to offset the impact of traditional service trade. ."
Xing Houyuan also believes that digital transformation should be carried out on the premise of coordinating epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development. Digital services related to cross-border e-commerce, import and export of goods, distance education, telemedicine, and telework, have The cultural consumption of traditional Chinese cultural elements has great potential for development.
The Ministry of Commerce also stated before that it will study and promote the introduction of a number of new policy measures to vigorously promote the high-quality development of digital trade, technology trade, and foreign cultural trade.