Xinhua Finance Beijing, September 4 (Reporter Dong Daoyong) In recent years, trade in services has become a new driving force for global trade and economic growth. At the "Summit Forum on the New Trends of Service Trade Opening and Development" held during this year’s Service Trade Fair, the participants said that the current service industry has entered an era of both trade and division of labor, and digitalization is promoting a new round of innovation in the service industry, and the integration of manufacturing and service industry is accelerating.
The data shows that the average growth rate of China’s service trade in recent ten years is 6.1%, which is about twice the global average growth rate. Under the new trend, the development of service trade is bringing new opportunities to China and the world. Experts said that enterprises in China should make extensive use of digital technology, seize new opportunities of service-oriented manufacturing, strive to improve the quality and efficiency of industrial development through new combinations of modern production factors, and break down barriers and obstacles that hinder the flow of factors.
The service industry has entered an era of both trade and division of labor.
With the application of digital technology, the connotation and extension of service trade are constantly changing and expanding. Wang Anshun, deputy director of the the State Council Development Research Center and a member of the Party Group, believes that trade in services is an important way for countries to integrate into economic globalization and participate in international cooperation and competition. With the acceleration of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, the process of production and consumption of services is inseparable, and the limitation of non-cross-border provision is constantly being broken, and the service industry has entered an era of both trade and division of labor.
What opportunities will the service industry bring to China, since it can be traded and divided? Wang Anshun believes that China’s service trade has great potential and many opportunities. In the past two years, China has continuously increased the opening-up of the service industry. There are only 23 items left in the Special Administrative Measures for Foreign Investment Access (Negative List) (2021 Edition), and the Special Administrative Measures for Cross-border Service Trade of Hainan Free Trade Port (Negative List) (2021 Edition) has been implemented in Hainan Free Trade Port to promote the development of cross-border service trade in many ways. "At present, the pilot areas of service trade innovation and development in China have been expanded from 15 to 28. All localities have taken the pilot as an opportunity to vigorously promote institutional innovation, actively seize the opportunity of service trade development, and promote the emergence of new formats and new models."
Wang Shouwen, deputy secretary of the Party Group of the Ministry of Commerce, international trade negotiator and vice minister, said that in the past 10 years, the scale of service outsourcing in China has increased by 2.9 times, and the accumulated employment has reached 11.27 million. China has become the world’s largest cross-border electronic commerce retail export economy, with the total import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce approaching RMB 2 trillion last year. "Now, the Ministry of Commerce is promoting the introduction of policies and measures on the development of service trade and digital trade, supporting the development of new bonded formats such as biomedical research and development, integrated circuit testing, cultural and artistic exhibition, and cultural relics appraisal services, expanding a number of export bases for featured services, and promoting the development of featured service trade such as intellectual property rights, geographic information, and human resources." Wang Shouwen said.
Digitalization promotes a new round of innovation in service industry
The data shows that in 2021, China’s cross-border digital service trade volume reached US$ 359.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.3%. Zhang Xiangchen, Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization, believes that service trade is the most dynamic part of global trade, and digital-driven service innovation has become the source of competitiveness in the whole value chain. At present, digitalization is promoting a new round of innovation in the service industry, which brings great new opportunities to economic growth.
Wang Anshun holds a similar view. He said that the demand for international cooperation in the service industry is rising, and digitalization provides a feasible means. Open cooperation is conducive to enhancing the international competitiveness of service trade and facilitating the integration of countries, especially developing countries and small and medium-sized service providers, into the global value chain.
"The new digital technology has improved the ability of human beings to collect, process and analyze data, and realized a data-driven digital platform, which fundamentally changed the supply chain ecosystem." Zhang Xiangchen said that B2C platforms such as Alibaba, Amazon, Airbnb and Uber have changed traditional retail, hotel, urban transportation or entertainment services; More and more digital platforms are booming in the B2B market, and are changing infrastructure industries such as finance, energy, transportation and logistics services.
China enterprises should seize the new opportunities of service-oriented manufacturing.
In the era of industrialization, manufacturing and service have formed an independent operation system and knowledge system due to the different characteristics of the production process, which are classified as the secondary industry and the tertiary industry respectively. With the advent of new scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, digital new technology has brought about the evolution of industry, which has broken the past state of industrial separation, and manufacturing and services are constantly merging.
Zhu Hongren, executive vice president and chairman of china enterprise confederation, said that at present, China manufacturing enterprises are advancing the process of transformation and upgrading in an all-round way along the direction of high-end, digitalization, greening and service, and service-oriented manufacturing is one of the important contents. He said that from the beginning of R&D and design to material supply, production, testing, final product formation and even sales, comprehensive consideration of service-oriented manufacturing will not only help improve efficiency and save costs, but also generate a large number of new businesses on the service side, fully reflect the characteristics of service trade and open up huge market space.
The so-called service-oriented manufacturing means that manufacturing enterprises continuously increase the proportion of service elements in input and output through innovation, optimization of production organization form, operation management mode and business development mode, so as to realize the transformation from processing and assembly to manufacturing+service, and from simply selling products to selling products+services. Zhu Hongren believes that service-oriented manufacturing is a new industrial production mode and industrial form with the integration of manufacturing and service development, which is conducive to promoting modern society to create new economic growth points and push the development of service-oriented manufacturing to a new level.
From the perspective of international development, Zhu Hongren said that by developing service-oriented manufacturing under the service trade, a group of multinational companies have grasped the front end of the global value chain and formed a new competitive advantage of differentiation that cannot be surpassed to hedge low-cost competition. He suggested that China enterprises fully realize that they should vigorously promote the construction of service-oriented manufacturing and climb to the high end of the global value chain in the face of today’s ever-accelerating changing world. First, take the development of service-oriented manufacturing as an effective way to improve the industrial basic capacity and industrial chain level, improve the quality and efficiency of industrial development through the new combination of modern production factors, and explore ways to break the barriers and obstacles that hinder the flow of factors; Second, fully understand the new goal of service-oriented manufacturing and adhere to the sustainable development goal that embodies the new concept; Third, enterprises adapt to the requirements of digital transformation, accelerate the pace of digital, networked and intelligent development, and form more application scenarios; Fourth, actively carry out new cooperation in service-oriented manufacturing and strengthen international cooperation.
Editor: Wang Xiaowei
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