General

Service trade plays an important role in building a new pattern of development. With the development of digital globalization and global trade in services, China's service trade has accelerated. In 2022, China's service trade will maintain rapid growth, with both quantity and quality. According to import and export data, China's total import and export of services in 2022 was 5980.19 billion yuan, up 12.9% year on year; Among them, service export was 285.224 billion yuan, up 12.1%; Import reached 3127.95 billion yuan, up 13.5%; The deficit was 275.71 billion yuan.

"Knowledge intensive" service trade has become a new driving force

Experts generally said that the rapid development of China's trade in services, on the one hand, stems from China's continuous promotion of high-quality economic development, which provides a strong economic foundation and social environment support for the development of trade in services; On the other hand, in recent years, China's policy effects of promoting the high-quality development of service trade such as digital trade, technology trade and foreign cultural trade have constantly emerged, providing a strong impetus for the development of service trade.

"From the perspective of demand, the scale of China's service industry has been expanding, the demand for productive services and living services has risen rapidly, and the demand for services at home and abroad has driven the rapid development of service trade." Zhang Jianping, deputy director of the Academic Committee of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce and director of the Regional Economic Cooperation Center, said that the rapid growth of China's service trade also benefited from China's expanded opening up in the field of service trade, and the pilot free trade zone has taken the lead The signing and upgrading of the free trade agreement, especially the chapter rules of service trade under the framework of RCEP, provide a broad space for China to expand the market of international service trade and improve the competitiveness of service trade. At the same time, China's service trade has increased rapidly in terms of technology content, brand and added value, and the service trade related to information and high technology has grown rapidly.

Relevant experts said that digital technology has brought more opportunities for the development of service trade. In recent years, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation has driven the rapid development of digital technology, promoted the deep integration of industries, and greatly improved the tradability of services. The connotation of service trade is constantly enriched and its extension is further expanded. Although the epidemic has had a certain impact on traditional service trade, it has also spawned a large number of new technologies, new formats and new scenarios, and the rapid development of remote services and non-contact economy. The knowledge-intensive service trade characterized by digitalization, intelligence and greening has become a new driving force for development.

Import and export data show that in 2022, the import and export of knowledge-intensive services will reach 2506.85 billion yuan, up 7.8%. Import and export data showed that the export of knowledge-intensive services was 1416.08 billion yuan, up 12.2%; The areas with rapid export growth were intellectual property royalties, telecommunications computers and information services, with an increase of 17.5% and 13% respectively; The import of knowledge-intensive services was 109077 billion yuan, up 2.6%; The area of rapid import growth is insurance services, with a growth rate of 35.8%.

Zhang Jianping analyzed that in recent years, China has continuously encouraged enterprises to increase investment in research and development, and encouraged enterprises to own independent intellectual property rights and develop independent brands through independent innovation. Therefore, a large number of strategic emerging industries and high-tech industries with very high intellectual content in China have grown rapidly, which makes the organic combination of China's knowledge-intensive service industry and manufacturing industry, especially the service-oriented trend of manufacturing industry very obvious, Thus, the competitiveness of China's service trade has been improved.

Further stimulate the vitality of service trade development

It cannot be ignored that the service trade deficit is the main source of China's trade deficit. According to import and export data, China's service trade deficit will fall to 211.28 billion yuan in 2021, the lowest since 2011. In 2022, the service trade deficit expanded to 275.71 billion yuan. Zhang Jianping said that China's current service trade deficit is relatively large in areas such as tourism, education, logistics and finance, especially tourism.

"In the past three years, the impact of international market depression, Russian-Uzbekistan conflict, epidemic and other factors on trade in services is no less than that of trade in goods. Especially, travel services are hindered by the restrictions of various countries' management measures on travel." Du Shanchuan, Secretary-General of Beijing Tongzhou Tourism Association, said in an interview with the media that the continuously optimized policies and actual data show that international tourism is hindered by the management measures of various countries is becoming the past, Next, travel service trade will grow rapidly.

Import and export data show that in 2022, China's import and export of travel services will reach 855.98 billion yuan, up 8.4% year on year. China's import and export of travel services will continue to recover. Shu Jueting, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, said at the press conference earlier that on January 8, China implemented "Class B and Class B control" for COVID-19 infection and optimized exit and entry management policies and measures. Relevant platform data shows that the volume of air ticket transactions in some popular overseas tourist destinations has increased significantly, and the volume of overseas hotel bookings has increased significantly. At the same time, the demand for inbound tourism, family visit and business is also gradually released.

"In the future, China will strive to reduce the deficit in service trade and realize the transformation of service trade from negative to positive." Zhang Jianping said, first, we should vigorously promote the open development of service trade. Hainan has launched China's first negative list of cross-border service trade, and hopes that its negative list management model can accelerate replication and promotion in pilot free trade zones such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, as well as comprehensive pilot cities for expanding the opening of the service industry, and implement the "access and operation permit" for service trade, so as to improve the competitiveness of service trade based on the market. Second, China's policies and regulations related to service trade should be in line with the international trade rules system and keep pace with the times. In particular, with a view to the future, if China wants to join the CPTPP and DEPA, the legal construction, management rules and standards of China's service trade should be connected with the international community, so as to stimulate the vitality of the development of service trade with institutional openness. Third, service trade includes four basic modes: cross-border payment, overseas consumption, commercial presence, and natural person flow. It requires high professional skills, language skills, operation and management ability and level of talents. China should accelerate the training and introduction of service trade talents.

Regarding how to further optimize the service import and export structure and promote the service trade to a new level, Liu Xiangdong, deputy director of the Economic Research Department of the China International Economic Exchange Center, suggested that, first of all, in view of the strong demand released by China's high-quality development, we should further expand the import of services such as R&D and design, energy conservation and carbon reduction, environmental services, and medical care; Secondly, we should expand the export of tourism, transportation and other traditional services after the optimization and adjustment of epidemic prevention and control; Finally, we should accelerate the promotion of knowledge-intensive services and expand the export of services with Chinese characteristics such as cultural services and traditional Chinese medicine services.