Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of Trade in Services through High-Level Opening Up" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which will promote the growth of China's service trade scale, structural optimization, efficiency improvement, and strength enhancement, thereby accelerating the construction of a trade powerhouse.
Since the outbreak of the international financial crisis in 2008, the momentum of economic globalization has been hindered. The trade dependency calculated by the proportion of global goods exports to GDP has not exceeded the previous high point to date. However, if the total of global goods and services exports is divided by GDP, this indicator broke through 30% in 2022, reaching a historical high. In 2023, against the backdrop of a year-on-year decrease of about 5% in goods trade, global service trade grew by about 8%, becoming an important engine for world trade growth.
While global service trade has developed rapidly, the proportion of trade in services that can be delivered digitally has continued to rise. From 2005 to 2023, while other service trade doubled, trade in services that can be delivered digitally quadrupled. Swiss economist Baldwin believes that the main driving force of the next stage of globalization will be the "third unbundling" of international trade, that is, "the geographic separation of labor and labor services achieved through digital technology."
In recent years, China's service trade has developed rapidly, but in 2023, the proportion of China's service trade in the total exports of goods and services was only 10.15%, lower than the global level of 24.8%. It can be seen that there is a huge development space for China's service trade. With the clearance of manufacturing items in the negative list of foreign investment and the comprehensive implementation of the negative list management system for cross-border service trade, service trade is expected to become a breakthrough for China to further expand its opening up.
In addition, China places more emphasis on institutional opening up while promoting flow-type opening up. The conduct of service trade is often accompanied by the cross-border flow of resource elements. To achieve efficient, convenient, and safe and orderly flow of elements, it is necessary to steadily promote institutional opening up such as rules, regulations, management, and standards. Taking data elements as an example, the "Opinions" propose "to support the establishment of an efficient, convenient, and secure data cross-border flow mechanism under the framework of the national data cross-border transmission security management system."
In March 2024, China issued a national version and a free trade pilot zone version of the negative list for cross-border service trade. The comprehensive implementation and improvement of the negative list management system for cross-border service trade is the key work for expanding service trade in the future. The pilot implementation of the negative list for cross-border service trade in Hainan Free Trade Port in 2021 laid the foundation for the comprehensive implementation of this system. The "Opinions" propose to further give full play to the exploratory functions and leading role of free trade pilot zones (ports), and to take the docking with international high-standard economic and trade rules as an important means to promote institutional opening up. At the same time, it is also required to improve the standardization level of service trade and carry out the internationalization of service trade standards.
Next, China will promote the opening up of service trade in a wider field and a larger range. On the one hand, the "Opinions" not only emphasize encouraging the export of traditional advantage services and expanding the import of high-quality services but also emphasize promoting innovative development in key areas such as international transportation, travel services, and professional services. It also proposes to promote the integrated development of service trade and goods trade, with special emphasis on digitalization, intelligence, and greening.
On the other hand, the "Opinions" propose to expand the layout of the international market, "to implement the Global Service Trade Partnership Network Plan, to consolidate key partners, and to actively explore emerging markets," especially to strengthen cooperation with countries participating in the construction of the "Belt and Road." The expansion of the scope of service trade partners also means the optimization of the domestic regional layout of service trade opening up. With the formation of the open pattern of "mutual aid between the east and the west, and linkage between land and sea," the "Opinions" propose to "guide the play of local resource advantages and support qualified regions to build international cooperation parks for service trade."
At the same time, China will promote a deeper opening up of service trade through deepening reforms. Objective and transparent standards and fair and just procedures are the basic requirements for the opening up of service trade. This depends on transforming government functions and处理好政府与市场的关系 through in-depth reforms. In recent years, China has greatly improved the level of opening up of service trade through the "decentralization, management, and service" reform.
Chinese-style modernization is modernization on a large scale. To give full play to the advantages of the large market, it is necessary to unblock the blockages and blockages in the domestic large cycle through deepening reforms and strengthen regional cooperation. All localities and departments must fully recognize the significant importance of developing service trade from a strategic height, and promote innovation through deepening reforms and expanding opening up, so that service trade innovation can obtain a broad application scenario in the national unified large market, thereby promoting China to become a service trade powerhouse as soon as possible.