A robot poses during the 2024 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 12, 2024. (Xinhua/Zou Guangping)
BEIJING, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- China has made progress in service trade as the latest official data showed that China's service trade continued to experience rapid growth in the first ten months of 2024, with the total service import and export volume exceeding 6.12 trillion yuan (about 838.5 billion U.S. dollars), up 14.6 percent year on year.
Experts believe that the high-quality development of China's service industry is gaining momentum due to the pioneering efforts of pilot zones in expanding opening up, facilitating service trade and optimizing business environment for an open economy.
-- Innovative pioneers
China's service trade has taken the lead in the world in restoring the growth trend thanks to the country's continuous efforts in promoting in-depth reform, high-level opening-up and all-round innovations since the beginning of the year.
The national comprehensive demonstration zone of service industry opening-up and the pilot free trade zone have firstly been set up in Beijing, while four pilot zones, including Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing and Hainan, have been added later in 2021, followed by six more pilot cities, such as Shenyang, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Guangzhou and Chengdu in 2022.
The 11 pilot zones, as pioneers in the opening-up of the service industry, explore replicable and transferable experience and practices, presenting great platforms for exploration and innovation.
The pilots summarized valuable experience, complied innovative practices, cases into reference books, and promoted them nationwide. These cities also introduced new products, standards and sharing platforms, such as low-carbon accounts in Wuhan, patent standards in Guangzhou and cross-border blockchain platform for multimodal transport in Chengdu.
-- Wider opening-up
A slew of measures have been taken to widen the opening up of the service industry. Thanks to the continuous efforts, the country has seen progress in building the national comprehensive demonstration zone and pilot free trade zones of service industry opening-up, removing market access restrictions and widening the opening-up of key industrial sectors, attracting many foreign enterprises to settle up here.
In terms of policy support, the country issued a circular in July approving shorter negative list at six pilot cities added in 2022, expanding the opening up of outbound travel, cultural and entertainment performances, telecommunications services and other sectors.
As a result, later in November, Shenyang saw its first foreign-funded travel agency launched, Aoyou (Shenyang) International Travel Service Co., Ltd., which is invested by Shi & Guo Pty. Ltd., an Australian firm.
Besides, in Nanjing, the first joint law firm, with partners from Jiangsu Province and Hong Kong, was approved by local authorities in September.
-- Remarkable achievements
As of September this year, 121 of the 130 tasks for the Guangzhou pilot zone had been implemented. In the first 10 months of 2024, 6,697 new foreign-invested enterprises were set up in Guangzhou's service sector, up 33.6 percent year on year, accounting for 97.6 percent of the city's total.
Hangzhou has also achieved remarkable results this year, registering an actual use of foreign capital of 4.66 billion U.S. dollars in the first half, ranking the second place among the country's major cities for the first time.
Nanjing also saw an actual use of foreign capital of 2.23 billion U.S. dollars in service industry in the first nine months of this year, accounting for 83.4 percent of the city's total.
Going forward, more support will go to service trade and also down the pike is further opening-up in the service sector, according to the country's recent Central Economic Work Conference.
(Edited by Li Shimeng with Xinhua Silk Road, lishimeng@xinhua.org)
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