Xi Jinping: We will take the initiative to further promote the high-level opening up of cross-border trade in services and investment in accordance with international high-standard economic and trade rules, expand market access for digital products, and deepen reforms in areas such as state-owned enterprises, digital economy, intellectual property rights, and government procurement. China will hold the "Global Digital Trade Expo" every year.
This quote is from President Xi Jinping's keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2023rd Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation on October 10, 18.
In recent years, with the deepening of the integration and development of digital technology and various industries, digital trade has become an important force to promote the upgrading and expansion of China's consumption, promote the transformation and upgrading of enterprises, shape the new advantages of national development, and help restore the vitality of the global economy.
Digital trade is an important pillar of building a trading powerhouse. Data shows that in 2022, global digitally deliverable services exports reached $4.1 trillion, accounting for more than half of global services exports. As one of the countries with the most dynamic scale and development of digital trade in the world, China has rich application scenarios of digital technology and continues to expand the objects of digital trade. At present, the trade of physical goods based on digital technology, as well as the sales of data and digital products based on digital technology, and digital service trade, is one of the important directions for China to promote the optimization and upgrading of cross-border service trade and investment. According to the China Digital Trade Development Report (2022) released by the 2022nd Global Digital Trade Expo, in 2, China's cross-border e-commerce import and export volume reached 11.3727 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of nearly 1%, and the import and export volume of digitally deliverable services reached a record high of <>.<> billion US dollars.
Compared with the vigorous development of digital trade practice, China's development in the top-level design and system construction of digital trade is still relatively lagging behind. For example, basic systems and norms such as data rights confirmation and transaction circulation, government procurement rules, as well as industry standards, regulatory rules, and monitoring systems, all need to be continuously reformed and explored in combination with actual development and market demand. We need to seize new opportunities for development, grasp new trends in development, and participate in international cooperation and rule-building in the digital field with a more active and open attitude.
The second edition of the Global Digital Trade Expo will come to an end today. Represented by the "Silk Road E-commerce" Cooperation Pilot Zone, which was launched last month, we are carrying out pilot trials in the areas of international rule docking, cross-border digital flow, and digital service market access, and further actively comparing international high-standard economic and trade rules, continuing to deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises, digital economy, intellectual property rights, government procurement and other fields, promoting a higher level of opening-up, and working with all parties to build digital trade into a new engine for common development.
Special expert of this issue: Li Liwei, Digital Economy and Innovation Research Center, Beijing Union University