China News Service, August 23. The State Council Information Office held a press conference on the 23rd to introduce the development of China's service trade and the progress of the preparations for the 2022 Service Trade Fair. A reporter asked: The current international situation is severe and complicated, and there is great pressure to stabilize foreign trade. May I ask the Ministry of Commerce, what is the current development of my country's trade in services?

What challenges do you face?

What measures will the Ministry of Commerce take in the next step to promote the steady development of service trade?

　　Sheng Qiuping, Vice Minister of Commerce, said that since last year, my country's trade in services took the lead among the world's major economies to overcome the impact of the new crown epidemic and achieved a recovery growth.

Last year, my country's service import and export volume reached 5.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.1% and a record high.

The world ranking of service exports rose from fourth to third.

In the first half of this year, my country's service trade continued to maintain a rapid growth trend. The total import and export of services reached 2.9 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.6%; of which service exports were 1.4 trillion yuan, an increase of 24.6%. International competitiveness has been further enhanced.

　　Sheng Qiuping said that although the service trade has achieved good development results, it should be noted that the current development of my country's service trade still faces many challenges and constraints.

First, the impact of the epidemic on trade in services is still ongoing.

At present, the global new crown epidemic is still ups and downs. Domestic epidemics are scattered in many places, and cross-border movement of people and business activities are subject to many restrictions. This has a greater impact on cross-border travel, construction, exhibitions, and other service trade involving the movement of natural persons.

Second, trade in services faces the risk of shrinking external demand.

The recovery of the world economy is fragile and weak. Recently, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have lowered their forecasts for global economic growth. The WTO expects global trade to grow by about 3% this year, lower than last year's forecast of 4.7%.

The sluggish demand in major economies has an adverse impact on my country's cross-border transportation and service outsourcing.

The third is the increased pressure on business operations.

Some service trade enterprises are facing challenges such as insufficient orders and rising costs, and their business expectations are unstable. In particular, small and medium-sized enterprises have relatively weak anti-risk capabilities and face greater survival pressure.

　　Sheng Qiuping said that despite facing many challenges, my country's annual service industry growth ranks first in the world, the level of openness in the service field has been continuously improved, and the digitalization process has gradually accelerated.

The solid development foundation of my country's service trade has not changed, the long-term positive development momentum has not changed, and its important position and role in foreign trade has not changed.

In the next step, we will continue to make efforts to promote the high-quality development of service trade in the following aspects.

　　The first is to expand the level of opening up and accelerate the establishment of a unified and open market system.

Promote the implementation of the negative list of cross-border service trade across the country.

Make good use of the important opening opportunities brought about by the implementation of RCEP to expand the scale of service trade with member states.

On August 18, the DEPA Joint Committee has officially decided to set up a working group for China to join the DEPA. Next, we will take the opportunity to apply for joining the CPTPP and DEPA to support qualified places to connect with international high-standard economic and trade rules to carry out pilot tests and upgrades. The level of facilitation of cross-border flow of various factors.

　　The second is to innovate the development model, increase the digital transformation of the traditional service trade field, support the development of smart logistics, online exhibitions, telemedicine and other fields, improve the tradability of services, and promote emerging services such as bonded research and development, testing, art exhibition and trading, etc. trade development.

Encourage the import of technologies and services such as energy conservation and carbon reduction, and environmental protection that are urgently needed in China, and expand the export of green and low-carbon technologies.

　　The third is to enhance the development platform.

Various policies and measures to promote the comprehensive deepening of the pilot program of innovative development of trade in services continued to be effective.

Explore the construction of national service trade innovation and development demonstration zones.

Build service outsourcing demonstration cities with high standards, support the accelerated development of new models and formats such as crowdsourcing, cloud outsourcing, and platform subcontracting, and give better play to the role of service outsourcing as a "reservoir" for college students' employment.

Promote the quality and upgrade of characteristic service export bases, focus on cultivating competitive market players, and lead and drive the accelerated development of new forms and models of service trade.

(Zhongxin Finance)