BEIJING, Jan.8 (Xinhua) -- In China today, enjoying foreign medical, insurance and traveling services is no longer rare; while Chinese mobile payment apps and traditional Chinese medicine services in a foreign country are becoming normal gradually.
This is a reflection of the wider opening of China's service industries and increasingly frequent service trade and service industries will likely remain a highlight in China's foreign trade panorama.
-- Service industries further opened up
China's State Council released a document to temporarily adjust the measures for administrative approval and special access administration in Beijing.
The adjustment in the document covers service industries including finance, air transport, culture, entertainment and audio-visual production. This is another measure for the opening of service industries after the State Council's approval of comprehensive pilot of wider opening of service industries in Beijing in June 2017.
With the constant releases of new regulations and measures in recent years, the testing measures of service sector opening up have mushroomed in pilot free trade zones in Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities besides Beijing.
Tang Wenhong, director of the Department of Foreign Investment Administration of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), said in 2018, the ministry will continue to reduce market access restrictions, speed up the opening up of the producer services and gradually expand foreign capital's access to consumer services including education, culture and medical treatment.
Li Jun, a senior analyst at Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the MOC, said regulations for commercial operation should also be softened while lowering the threshold of entering the market. "There are still some 'small doors' closed in market operation. To open the market wider, procedures of giving licenses and qualifications should also be further standardized and simplified," said Li Jun.
-- Broad innovative service markets
China UnionPay launched Cloud QuickPass in Hong Kong and Singapore in June 2017, and will extend the business to more countries and regions such as Southeast Asia and Australia; Alipay has been connected to many offline stores in Europe, America, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and has forged partnerships with many large airports including Munich Airport and Narita International Airport…
A prominent feature of China's service trade today is the fast growth of emerging and innovative services' import and export.
China's imports and exports of emerging services reached 1.04953 trillion yuan in the first three quarters of 2017, including exports of 515.65 billion yuan, accounting for 49.2 percent of China's total service exports, according to the data released by MOC.
All emerging services exclude insurance saw positive import and export growth. Thanks to the rapid development of the digital economy, telecommunication service, computer service and information service imports and exports all grew by more than 20 percent, accounting for 11.6 percent of China's total service trade, which has become the new engine of service trade.
-- B&R drives service industries
With the construction of the initiative going forward, it has also pushed forward China's service trade with relevant countries in fields including tourism, culture and technology.
The renowned travel journal Lonely Planet, placed Gansu province of China on the top of its list of 10 Best Places to Visit in Asia in 2017. Analyst believe the fast growth of Gansu's tourism popularity worldwide is benefited from the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Gansu received 235 million domestic and foreign tourists from January to November 2017, and achieved tourism revenues of 155.1 billion yuan, up 25.3 percent and 29.3 percent respectively year on year, according to data released by the Gansu Provincial Tourism Commission.
Professional services such as financial service have also been following. More than 80 percent of Chinese bankers thought that serving the construction of the Belt and Road and the free trade areas of the Asia Pacific region is the primary task of China's banking industry during its overseas development, according to a report recently released by the China Banking Association.
Li further said that services came first when companies of Japan, America and European countries entered China tens of years ago. Advertising companies, hotels, travel agencies, market research agencies and accounting firms moved into China first, creating conditions for foreign manufacturers to flock into China, and China can also learn from the experience while developing the markets along the Belt and Road.
(Edited by Yang Qi, kateqiyang@xinhua.org; source: the People's Daily)
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