Guangzhou introduces construction plan for national service trade innovation and development demonstration zone

Guangzhou, August 18th (Reporter Zhang Shunpeng) Currently, service trade has become an important component of international trade and a core area of international economic and trade cooperation. Recently, Guangzhou officially issued the "Construction Plan for Guangzhou National Service Trade Innovation and Development Demonstration Zone" ("Construction Plan"), which is a "construction drawing" that has been fully prepared and systematically planned to promote the comprehensive implementation of the demonstration zone after Guangzhou was successfully selected as the first batch of national service trade innovation and development demonstration zones in April this year.

A reporter from China National Radio learned that Guangzhou will closely focus on its resource endowment and development positioning, tailor measures to local conditions around six key directions, refine 121 specific measures, explore a development path of deeper reform, higher-level opening up, and stronger innovation in service trade, and create a national benchmark for high-quality development of service trade.

Anchor development goals and clarify the "three-step" roadmap

The 'Construction Plan' aims to achieve the three milestones of 2028, 2030, and 2035, and promote the 'three-step' development path:

By 2028, the total import and export volume of service trade in the city will exceed 100 billion US dollars, and continue to climb towards the high end of the value chain. By 2030, the digital, green, and integrated development momentum of service trade in the city will become stronger, the contribution of service exports will be more significant, the proportion of digitally deliverable service imports and exports will further increase, and a batch of experiences that can be replicated and promoted nationwide will be formed. By 2035, the vitality of service trade in the entire city will be fully unleashed, forming a great synergy in industrial development, an international trade corridor, a large gathering of factor resources, an international transportation hub, and a major upgrade in service consumption in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area. Trade liberalization and facilitation will reach a global advanced level, and a new pattern of high-quality development of service trade will be built in the service bay area, radiating across the country and connecting the world.

Highlight four major highlights and outline the "Guangzhou Path" of service trade innovation

It is understood that the "Construction Plan" highlights four major features:

The Bay Area collaborates to break through the deadlock and deepen the "soft connectivity" of rules and mechanisms. The coordinated development of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area is the most distinctive feature of Guangzhou's service trade. The "Construction Plan" specifies 20 tasks for the integrated development of service trade with Hong Kong and Macao, such as promoting the implementation of the CEPA service trade opening-up policy in Guangzhou, supporting the establishment of bank card business by mainland branches of Hong Kong and Macao banks, developing the "Bay Area Standard", and expanding mutual recognition of testing and certification. Guangzhou will also establish a "Five Links" service system, including the Bay Area Drug and Equipment Connect, Service Connect, Settlement Connect, Referral Connect, and Talent Connect, to deepen cooperation in the horse industry between Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macao, and comprehensively expand the space for service trade cooperation between Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macao.

Expand the industrial track and cultivate new quality productivity engines. Around the construction of a modern industrial system in the city, Guangzhou is accelerating the development of service trade that is compatible with new quality productivity. In the field of biomedicine, foreign-invested enterprises are allowed to engage in the development and application of human stem cell, gene diagnosis and treatment technologies. In the field of integrated circuits, establish a "port warehouse internal transfer" mechanism such as chip allocation and storage. In the field of digital economy, we will build the Guangzhou Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area Artificial Intelligence Application Empowerment Center, promote cross-border computing power interconnection, and explore the creation of cross-border computing power corridors. In the field of international transportation, support the implementation of "TIR+cross-border e-commerce" and "TIR+bonded goods" transportation. In addition, low altitude economy, "artificial intelligence+" cross-border services, e-commerce, cultural trade, etc. have also been included in the key cultivation scope.

Focus on institutional openness and break down barriers behind the border. In response to the "post border" barriers such as rules, standards, qualifications, and data, the "Construction Plan" proposes to actively connect with international high standard economic and trade rules such as CPTPP and DEPA, relax access restrictions by classification, improve the regulatory system, and explore the integration of international rules and standards in the fields of digital economy and green trade. Focusing on the convenient and secure cross-border flow of capital, data, and technology elements, as well as the convenient cross-border practice of professional talents, we will promote a series of "small incision" reform measures such as the facilitation of foreign exchange receipts and payments, the management of cross-border negative lists for data, and the opening of vocational qualification examinations for foreign personnel, in order to solve the complex problems of cross-border flow of factors through a point to surface approach.

Strengthen platform demonstration to drive and build a service ecosystem for going global. Guangzhou will leverage the combined effects of policies such as the National Service Trade Innovation and Development Demonstration Zone and Free Trade Pilot Zone, the Comprehensive Pilot Program for Expanding Service Industry Openness, and various national service export bases to achieve the integration of open resources, complementary advantages of openness, and linkage of opening-up measures. At the same time, cultivate a group of cross-border professional service enterprises, make policy arrangements in taxation, export credit insurance, and guidance funds, and create an ecosystem for Guangzhou's service trade to go global.

The accumulation of three rounds of pilot projects has built a solid foundation for the development of service trade

Since 2015, Guangzhou has carried out three consecutive rounds of national service trade innovation and development pilot projects, successively landing a number of landmark projects such as the HSBC Global Training Center, Ant Group Cross border Trade Payment and Account Service Center, forming a number of "best practice cases" of comprehensively deepening service trade innovation and development pilot projects in many countries, such as Hong Kong and Macao children's schools, the first Internet arbitration recommendation standard, and the innovative opening up pilot of patent agency.

At present, Guangzhou has cultivated and formed multiple national level platforms, including two national cultural export bases and one national digital service export base. As the core growth pole of service trade, Guangzhou's digital trade has a solid foundation, with a scale of over 50 billion US dollars by 2025 and nearly 400 backbone enterprises with revenue exceeding 100 million yuan. Industry leaders such as Google, Tencent, Alibaba, and Vipshop are all located in Guangzhou.

In May of this year, the negative list for data export from Guangdong Pilot Free Trade Zone was officially implemented. In July, Nansha issued implementation guidelines, exempting data outside the list from review and effectively reducing compliance costs for enterprises. As the first cross-border data negative list business landing enterprise in Nansha Free Trade Zone, the relevant person in charge of Guangdong Zhuozhi Cross border E-commerce Supply Chain Service Co., Ltd. said, "Now we can conveniently provide supplier and customer information to overseas according to business needs, smoothly carry out supply chain trade business such as customs clearance, and greatly shorten the business cycle

Wang Xiaohua, a municipal level investigator of Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce, said that with the construction of the innovative development demonstration zone of service trade fully launched, Guangzhou's service trade will enter the "fast lane" of accelerated development. Next, Guangzhou will focus on implementing the plan, accelerate the creation of a major open cooperation platform with outstanding innovation capabilities, trade industry linkage, and significant radiation effects, cultivate a group of service export enterprises with international competitiveness, form a more sound system and business environment for innovative development of service trade, and provide replicable and promotable "Guangzhou experience" for the innovative development of service trade nationwide.