General

Data show that in 2021, the scale of China's digital trade market will be about 42.89 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.5% over 2020, ranking among the top in the world. In recent years, China has regarded foreign trade and participation in the formulation of international rules as an important aspect of stabilizing the growth of the national economy. It has promulgated a series of policies and regulations to optimize the environment for foreign investment in China and continue to enhance the attractiveness of the Chinese market.

In order to continue to consolidate the huge market space for win-win cooperation between China and other countries and regions in the world, recently, the 2022 China International Fair for Trade in Services (hereinafter referred to as "Service Trade Fair") North America Online Promotion Conference was held. More than 150 representatives of enterprises and commercial institutions in China attended the meeting.

At the meeting, the co-organizer of the Service Trade Fair's Telecommunications, Computer and Information Special Exhibition and President of the US Information Industry Agency, Mowander, said that China is experiencing a new round of epidemics, and many companies are re-planning their supply chain layout and global investment. As an industry association that has been deeply involved in China for many years, it will continue to help Chinese technologies and standards connect with the international community, and at the same time, actively establish communication channels through the platform of the Service Trade Fair's special exhibition on telecommunications, computer and information services to help the government attract more foreign investment.

Foreign investment ushered in multiple favorable policies

Under the influence of a series of internal and external uncertainties such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic, in 2021, China's use of foreign capital will continue to grow against the trend, achieving the "three increases" of total investment, growth rate, and global proportion. In 2021, my country's import and export scale will reach 6.05 trillion US dollars, and the actual use of foreign direct investment in the whole year will be 1,149.4 billion yuan, which is the first time in the past 10 years to achieve double-digit growth. It highlights the role of China in implementing a package of favorable policies for foreign investment in recent years.

The "Foreign Investment Law of the People's Republic of China", which came into effect on January 1, 2020, provides a more solid and powerful guarantee for actively promoting foreign investment, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investment, and promoting the formation of a new pattern of comprehensive opening up; promulgated in October 2021. The National Standardization Development Outline is an important measure to deepen international exchanges and cooperation in standardization and enhance the support of standardization for economic and social development; the 2021 edition of the Special Administrative Measures for Foreign Investment Access (Negative List) further improves the pre-entry national treatment and Negative list management system to promote investment liberalization and facilitation; in the past two years, pilot zones and free trade zones in Beijing, Shanghai, Hainan and other places have continuously improved the development level of free trade pilot zones, forming more replicable and popularized institutional innovations results.

Mowander said at the meeting: "For a long time, U.S. information industry organizations have been focusing on promoting the development of high-tech industries, and at the same time helping foreign companies find more investment opportunities in China. In the investment access list, we see China's determination and confidence in further expanding reform and opening up and actively promoting foreign investment."

The favorable policy signal has attracted a large number of foreign-funded projects to land one after another. Since 2020, Urumqi has signed a cooperation agreement with Siemens Industry Software (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. to jointly build a new infrastructure innovation base for China-Europe digital industry. The innovation base will rely on the resources of Siemens intelligent manufacturing, industrial Internet and other fields to build platforms for technological innovation, intelligent manufacturing services, talent cultivation and innovation acceleration in areas such as intelligent manufacturing, new energy, and industrial Internet; European software companies SAP and Shandong Laiwu High-tech Zone signed a contract, and the SAP Intelligent Manufacturing Innovation Empowerment Industrial Park project was launched. It plans to invest 200 million yuan to establish a digital innovation empowerment center, a digital industry and service platform, a double recruitment and double introduction platform, and a digital talent platform; Intel announced Join hands with Nanjing to build a "Future Science and Technology Smart Center", gradually build a smart park, and promote applications such as smart buildings, smart offices, smart manufacturing, smart transportation, and smart robots... It has contributed to the smooth domestic and international dual circulation.

Sino-US trade cooperation has broad space

According to the "Global Trade Update" released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in February this year, in 2021, world trade in goods will maintain strong growth, and trade in services has returned to the level before the epidemic. From the perspective of the world's two largest economies, data released by the General Administration of Customs of China in January this year showed that in 2021, the trade volume between China and the United States will increase by 28.7% year-on-year to US$755.6 billion, maintaining a strong growth momentum. According to the White Paper on American Businesses in China published by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, China has become a major export market for American products and services.

At the meeting, Xing Houyuan, a senior expert from the Global Alliance for Trade in Services, pointed out that service trade is an important area of Sino-U.S. economic and trade relations, and the advantageous areas of U.S. service exports to China mainly include telecommunications, computer and information services, finance and insurance. Services, Intellectual Property Services, Other Business and Personal Services.

Taking Qualcomm, which has been rooted in China for nearly 30 years, as an example, Qualcomm closely follows China's informatization and digitalization process, providing mobile computing (laptops, smartphones, tablet computers), network connections (carrier-grade networks, enterprise networks, home networks, small cells) and more solutions in consumer electronics and smart cities.

The latest flagship phones of Chinese mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, OPPO, VIVO, etc., all appeared on the Qualcomm booth at the 2021 CIFTIS. They are all equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 or 888 Plus 5G processors. Meng Pu, chairman of Qualcomm China, said that since 2018, the top five mobile phone manufacturers in China are all partners of Qualcomm, and their total market share in global mobile phone shipments has also increased by 1/3. The remarkable achievements are also the role played by the domestic and foreign dual cycles promoted by the cooperation between Qualcomm and China's industrial chain.

China and the United States also cooperate closely in the automotive field. Since the super factory of Tesla, the leading electric vehicle company in the United States, landed in Shanghai in 2019, the factory has become a global manufacturing center for the hot-selling Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and a major export center for Tesla. In February this year, sales of new energy vehicles in China reached nearly 57,000 units, of which 23,000 were delivered to Chinese consumers.

The benign cooperation has not only stimulated China's domestic demand, but also jointly built a solid industrial chain supply chain system. In Shanghai Lingang New Area, around the Tesla factory, upstream suppliers have set up factories one after another, and there are many auto parts companies in Suzhou, Ningbo, Nantong, Wuxi, Shaoxing, Taizhou, Nanjing, Changzhou and other places. Tesla's "4-hour circle of friends" has formed a large-scale industrial cluster.

Regarding the cooperation between Chinese and American enterprises in the field of health care, Xu Jun, managing director of GE Healthcare (China) Co., Ltd., said at the meeting that about 20 million Chinese people benefit from GE's medical technology every day. The company has become one of the largest medical technology multinationals in China. Facing China, the company has a business of 2.7 billion US dollars, 5 factories and 7,000 employees, and has built a "diagnosis + digital ecosystem" system in China.

"China's service import scale ranks second in the world, but its growth scale remains the world's first, especially for high-end services. China is a market with huge scale and development potential." Xing Houyuan said.

The smooth dual circulation needs to continue to activate the new kinetic energy of service trade

Under the influence of a new round of epidemics, many companies are re-planning supply chains and global investment layouts to maintain flexibility and sustainability in the global industrial chain supply chain.

In recent years, China is accelerating the pace of digital transformation of thousands of industries. "In this process, China needs to have extensive investment to achieve long-term development. This is exactly what the US information industry agencies have been concerned about recently in the ICT field. Looking at the world, the entire ICT industry is very optimistic about China's development prospects and Actively participate in the ecological layout of China's related industries." Miao Wande pointed out, "but at the same time, the ICT field is also facing some challenges, including data governance, privacy, market access, intellectual property protection and other issues. Taking data cross-border as an example, whether an enterprise’s business can be implemented in China is largely affected by data cross-border rules, and we expect China to create a more open, transparent and sustainable industrial environment in this regard.”

In response to the country's call of "adhering to open cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win results, sharing the development opportunities of service trade, and jointly promoting the recovery and growth of the world economy", the Service Trade Association has continuously improved the level of openness, expanded the space for cooperation, and strengthened the construction of rules in the service field. As the world's largest service trade fair, the 2021 Service Trade Fair will attract more than 12,000 companies from 153 countries and regions to participate in the exhibition online and offline, 350,000 people will participate in the exhibition, and 294 important domestic and foreign guests will be online and offline. Attended forums and conferences and achieved 1,672 various achievements, which effectively promoted the exchange and cooperation of international trade in services.

"This year, the thematic exhibition of the Service Trade Fair will fully mobilize the resources of domestic and foreign industries and enterprises in the 12 categories of service trade defined by the WTO, effectively connect all links in the industrial value chain, and promote the high-quality development of China's economy." Capital Exhibition (Group ) said Liu Yunxue, head of the exhibition team at the Service Trade Fair Center.

"As the co-organizer of the telecommunications, computer and information special exhibition of the Service Trade Fair, the US information industry organization is willing to continue to cooperate with the Service Trade Fair to help companies in the industry who are looking for investment opportunities and foreign companies currently active in China to practice exploration and jointly play a communication platform. It can fully tap the potential of the free trade zone to attract investment." Mowander said.

With the help of global influence, there is also the Bank of China to help the global service trade unimpeded. According to Qiao Lei, senior business manager of Bank of China in the United States, as a global strategic partner of the CIFTIS, at the CIFTIS 2021, Bank of China launched digital authorization activities, mainly involving cross-border trade, education, winter sports and silver economy. In addition, innovative financial products and service solutions have been launched to provide a new, scalable and comprehensive solution for CIFTIS. Recently, Bank of China was awarded the title of "Best Trade Financier in Asia Pacific" by Trade Finance Global, the world's leading trade finance platform, in preparation for the Service Trade Fair in September this year.