Photo shows the exhibition area of the 2024 China International Fair for Trade in Services. (Xinhua/ Wei Yukun)
BEIJING, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The 2024 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) concluded in Beijing on Monday, achieving fruitful results in various fields and injecting more vitality into global economic growth.
By the noon of Monday, the five-day service trade fair had made nearly 1,000 achievements and attracted about 242,000 visitors.
About 111 companies and institutions, including Fortune Global 500 companies and industry leaders, released a total of 219 achievements in the fields of digitalization, artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare, etc., a surge of 80 compared with the previous session.
In 2023, global digital service trade reached 4.25 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023, an increase of 9 percent year on year, becoming a prominent highlight in the development of services trade.
The 2024 CIFTIS focused on new trends in the development of trade in services, with AI and innovation-driven development being the key words.
Wu Tian, vice president of Baidu, noted that in the future, more service industries and application scenarios will rely on AI technologies to achieve innovative development.
At present, new technologies and applications in the field of services trade are quickening the pace to integrate with social life and production, which is conductive to constantly open up new space for foreign trade development, said Pang Chaoran, associate researcher of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce (MOC).
It is learned that over 80 countries and international organizations held exhibitions and conferences at the fair, with 13 of them setting up independent offline exhibitions for the first time, showcasing their local traditional culture.
From a global perspective, cultural trade has great potential for development, said Pan, adding that the CIFTIS has built a platform and bridge for the high-quality development of cultural trade and activated a new engine for the development of services trade.
In addition, this year's CIFTIS helps enterprises build a big circle of friends for win-win cooperation.
Participating in the fair for the fifth time this year, Schneider Electric reached a new cooperation with Chinese steelmaker Jingye Group at the fair.
Xu Shaofeng, senior vice president of Schneider Electric, said that the company established a services business center in China and will sign service cooperation agreements with more Chinese partners. (Edited by Yang Yifan with Xinhua Silk Road, yangyifan@xinhua.org)
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