Economic Daily: What is the potential for the development of China's service trade?

Currently, service trade has become the focus of global free trade development and the focus of international economic and trade rule reconstruction. Against this background, what is the development potential of China's service trade in the future? Structural adjustment contains enormous potential. Predictions show that under the drive of changes in consumption structure and industry structure upgrades, in the next 5 to 10 years, China's service trade will continue to maintain a relatively high growth rate. It is expected to reach $2.7 trillion by 2035, with the proportion of service trade in foreign trade expected to reach around 20%, close to the global average level. Economic transformation has led to the continuous optimization of the structure of service trade, shifting from traditional trades such as tourism, film and television, and gaming to a new structure dominated by knowledge-intensive services. Service trade will become one of the important leading industries in China. Expanding openness nurtures greater space. The development of service trade cannot be separated from the support of institutional openness. Last year, China established a negative list management system for cross-border service trade nationwide for the first time, introducing negative lists for both free trade pilot zones and nationwide cross-border service trade. Next, efforts should be made to continue to enhance the level of institutional openness, timely streamline the negative lists for cross-border service trade, and steadily promote the graded opening of cross-border service trade. Proactively aligning with international high-standard economic and trade rules, promoting the alignment and compatibility of rules, regulations, management, and standards in the field of service trade, creating a number of comprehensive reform and opening-up demonstration platforms for service trade, empowering the development of service trade through openness and innovation. Deepening cooperation unleashes more energy. Currently, China's service trade market in North America, ASEAN, and other regions is maintaining a good growth momentum, and the vitality of service trade with countries and regions participating in the "Belt and Road" initiative is strong. As China's consumption patterns gradually shift towards a new stage where both goods consumption and service consumption are emphasized, by deepening multilateral and bilateral regional cooperation, utilizing major exhibition platforms such as the China International Fair for Trade in Services, and establishing international cooperation parks for service trade, more new dynamics for the development of service trade are expected to be unleashed.