At the beginning of the year, we will plan for a new situation and deploy high-quality development of service trade in multiple places

The recently held National Business Work Conference proposed to vigorously develop trade in services when deploying key tasks for 206. At the same time, at the beginning of the new year, many places such as Guangdong, Guizhou, and Henan have made arrangements for the high-quality development of service trade.

For example, the General Office of the People's Government of Guizhou Province has issued the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the High Quality Development of Service Trade and Digital Trade", which proposes 20 key tasks from six aspects, requiring that by 2027, the import and export volume of services should reach more than 12 billion yuan, and the scale of digitally deliverable service trade should account for more than 35% of the total service trade in the province; By 2030, the import and export volume of services will reach over 14 billion yuan, and the proportion of digitally deliverable service trade in the total service trade of the province will increase to over 45%. During the "15th Five Year Plan" period, the annual growth rate of service import and export volume will be over 5%, forming a development pattern of "upgrading traditional service trade and leading digital trade".

According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Commerce, China's service trade will continue to maintain steady growth in the first 11 months of 2025, with knowledge intensive services accounting for nearly 40%, becoming the core driving force for the growth of service trade.

Liu Xiangdong, Deputy Director of the Research and Information Department of the China International Economic Exchange Center, stated in an interview with Securities Daily that China's service trade will maintain steady growth in 2025, demonstrating the characteristics of digital trade leading and new service trade emerging. Among them, the competitiveness of knowledge intensive service trade will be enhanced, becoming the core driving force for the growth of service trade. At the beginning of the year, many regions deployed the next phase of work to promote the growth resilience of service trade in the complex and ever-changing global economic and trade environment, and to reserve growth momentum for subsequent development.

High level opening up to the outside world is a key driving force for stimulating the growth of service trade. From recent deployments in various regions, enhancing the level of the platform for opening up to the outside world has become one of the important measures. For example, Guizhou has proposed to "create a national demonstration zone for innovative development of service trade, support Guiyang in building a high standard Chinese service outsourcing demonstration city, and explore new paths and experiences of 'big data+service trade'" and "apply for the establishment of China (Guizhou) Free Trade Pilot Zone"; Guangdong has proposed to implement the negative list management system for cross-border service trade, deepen the comprehensive pilot program for expanding the opening up of the service industry in Guangzhou, expand the opening up of value-added telecommunications services in Shenzhen, and support Shenzhen in carrying out a new round of comprehensive pilot programs for expanding the opening up of the service industry.

Song Siyuan, Associate Researcher at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, told Securities Daily reporters that the comprehensive implementation of a series of high-level opening-up measures such as the negative list of cross-border service trade and the creation of national service trade innovation and development demonstration zones will greatly enhance the development level of China's service trade. From the perspective of support areas in various regions, by 2026, artificial intelligence services, green services, and high-end productive services will show growth highlights.

How to enhance the "gold content" and "intelligence content" of China's service trade? Liu Xiangdong believes that it is necessary to rely on technological innovation and the widespread application of new technologies to transform and enhance trade patterns, and further increase the proportion of knowledge intensive services. In addition, we will continue to deepen opening up and actively connect with the high standard service trade rules system, promote the integration of domestic and foreign trade rules and standards, and take the lead in achieving institutional breakthroughs in fields such as healthcare, education, and digital culture.

Song Siyuan stated that firstly, we need to strengthen innovation drive, focus on cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, increase research and development investment, establish a collaborative innovation mechanism of "government industry university research application", break through key core technologies, cultivate more service products with independent intellectual property rights, and continuously enhance the global competitiveness of service trade; Second, promote industrial integration, deepen the integration of service trade and manufacturing, develop R&D design, industrial Internet, supply chain management and other productive services, and extend the high-end links of the value chain; Thirdly, we will deepen institutional openness, actively connect with high standard economic and trade rules such as CPTPP and DEPA, promote rule coordination in areas such as digital trade, green services, and intellectual property, and strengthen global discourse power in rule making; The fourth is to further optimize the domestic industrial layout, support advanced regions to form global service trade hubs, promote the active undertaking of industrial transfer in the central and western regions, and rely on their own resource endowments to shape characteristic service advantages, forming a coordinated and linked innovative high-quality development pattern.