In the first half of the year, knowledge-intensive service trade grew 9.2 percent year on year

According to the Ministry of Commerce, China's trade in services was generally stable in the first half of this year, with the knowledge-intensive service trade growing by 9.2% year on year, accounting for a higher proportion. The innovative development of trade in services has become the driving force of China's stable foreign trade.

China's trade in services totaled 2.2 trillion yuan in the first half of the year

Xian Guoyi, director-general of the Department of Trade in Services of the Ministry of Commerce, said that China's trade in services has generally shown a trend of stabilization against the backdrop of a sharp decline in global trade in services. In the first half of the year, China's trade in services totaled 2.2 trillion yuan, down 14.7 percent year-on-year. However, it is worth noting that the import and export of knowledge-intensive services grew by 9.2% year on year, accounting for 43.7%, up 9.6 percentage points.

"The decline in the import and export of travel services is the main factor behind the decline in China's trade in services. Excluding travel services, China's exports and imports of services grew 2.1% in the first half. "In the first half of this year, the number of Chinese companies outsourcing services offshore grew by 10.4 percent, including 8.7 percent for industrial design services and 35.3 percent for pharmaceutical and biotechnology r&d services." Xian guoyi said.

Li Xilin, a researcher at the Institute of International Trade in Services, Ministry of Commerce, believes that due to the impact of coVID-19, the development of China's service trade, especially the traditional service trade represented by travel, transportation and construction services, will still face great uncertainties for some time to come. However, the long-term trend of structural improvement in China's trade in services will not change. "In the future, trade in services related to cross-border movement of people, such as travel services, will also be affected by uncertainties, mainly depending on the development of the epidemic outside China. And the growth in the import and export of knowledge-intensive services has been considerable, which is also a very prominent manifestation of the optimization of China's service trade structure."

Xing Houyuan, director of the China Service Outsourcing Research Center, believes that the proportion of technology-intensive service trade will continue to rise. "Due to the epidemic, the demand for online 'Internet plus' services supported by IT technology has been on the rise. Some countries and regions and some industries have even seen explosive growth. And the supply ability of our country university graduate, high quality labor force also is increasing ceaselessly. In addition, through service outsourcing, digital transformation and innovative development, export service capacity has been continuously enhanced. In the future, the proportion of high-tech intensive service trade in the whole service trade will continue to increase and become a long-term growth area."

Pilot projects for innovative development of trade in services will drive high-quality development of trade in services

At present, the innovative development of service trade has become the focal point of China's stable foreign trade. An executive meeting of the State Council recently called for bringing into play the role of trade in services in stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment, deepening the pilot program for innovative development of trade in services, and extending the pilot program to some parts of 21 provinces in China to promote a higher level of opening-up.

In 2016, the State Council approved pilot projects for innovative development of service trade in 15 regions, including Shanghai and Hainan, and new areas in Beijing and Xiongan new Area were added in June 2018, said Gao Feng, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce. In recent years, the business part of the three groups issued 74 experience and best practice case, such as the first experience of "relying on big data promote the development of trade in services digital" fusion "push" Internet + trade in services of traditional Chinese medicine "development", "construction 'area' language service platform, all the way to promote language service trade development", the first batch of best practice in the case of "odd jobs and guest Shared services" "third party medical test testing laboratory sharing mode" "new model" 'net exhibition services. The second batch of best practice cases include "Promoting the development of new formats of cruise service trade", "Innovating online digital exhibition mode", "Accelerating the construction of smart city", etc.

"The trial of innovative development of trade in services has led to high-quality development of the country's trade in services." The summit said. Data from the Ministry of Commerce shows that in 2019, the import and export of services from pilot regions accounted for more than 75 percent of the country's total, growing faster than the national average. Driven by the pilot program, China's total import and export of services increased from US $654.2 billion in 2015 to US $785 billion in 2019, with an average annual growth rate of 4.7%.

"By extending the pilot program to some of the 21 provinces and regions of China, we will further enhance the capacity for innovative development of trade in services, further expand the radiation-driven effect, and play a bigger role in stabilizing foreign trade," he said. "Mr. Li said.

At present, service trade has become a new driving force of China's foreign trade development. Xing Houyuan, director of the China Service Outsourcing Research Center, said the introduction of relevant national support policies will boost the rapid development of service trade in terms of both quality and quantity, and play a greater role in stabilizing foreign trade. "Compared with the trade in goods, the value created by services is at the upstream of the industrial chain with high added value. As a result, our ability to export services has increased our position in the global industrial system." Xing houyuan said.

"Given the huge pressure on external demand in the international market as a whole, on the one hand, pilot projects can play a stabilizing role in terms of volume, especially in the export of knowledge-intensive services," he said. "At the same time, the contribution in quality is more obvious," said Xing. Before China exported some equipment manufacturing equipment, due to the service can not keep up, will affect a certain market share. Now when our service capacity catches up, we will in turn support the export of equipment and become more capable of supplying the international market."