BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) – China is likely to introduce a batch of supportive policies soon to foster the development of service trade, making the further opening-up of service market its priority in 2019, reported Economic Information Daily on Tuesday.
Currently, five key catalogues in service trade concerning service imports and exports as well as outsourcing have been basically revised and will be released soon.
The revised catalogues will emphasize key areas of service imports and exports, and clarify more viable corresponding supportive policies, said Xian Guoyi, director-general of the Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services of China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC).
Meanwhile, the revised catalogues will give more display to the new demands for the opening-up of service sector created by digital technology development and support for real needs of the national economy and people's livelihood.
Data showed that the potential in China's health service market may reach 8 trillion yuan by 2020 and the overall size of the life service market may hit 33 trillion yuan by 2023. The market size will not only provide huge investment space for social capital, but also attract the attention of global capital, said Chi Fulin, president of China Institute for Reform and Development (CIRD).
What's worth noting is that the opening-up in high-tech as well as health and pharmaceutical industries may become one of the major breakthroughs in the opening-up of service market and receive more favorable policies.
The country's central authorities are actively exploring fields such as tax preference and pharmaceutical bonded research and development (R&D) currently, and new policies may come out soon.
Imports of relevant services such as medical technology will also be expanded under the new catalogues, in a bid to better meet the needs of relevant service consumption, said Li Jun, a researcher at CAITEC.
In terms of exports of high-tech as well as medical and health services, new policies are also under planning. China's central authorities are mulling to build export bases for digital service and traditional Chinese medicine.
As for service exports, new technology, business and modes concerning fields such as digital economy and industry, Internet-related industries and key service-outsourcing areas will be added into the catalogues under revision, said Li Jun. (Edited by Gu Shanshan)
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