Country eyes more liberalized tertiary industry

He added that the country is set to further boost exports in services in fields such as traditional Chinese medicine, animation, film, publishing and sports, as well as communications, financial and information technology.

"The country's integration into global value and supply chains and its merchandise exports rely to a large extent on its services sector and services trade," said Yi Xiaozhun, deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization.

China has increased its efforts to draw more foreign capital to the services sector, hoping to ride a wave of booming service sectors worldwide. Amendments to laws that target overseas capital investment in China have been on the agenda.

Services trade growth outpaces that of goods

China's April services growth quickens slightly

"The current policy vision rightly considers the strengthening of services as essential for moving the manufacturing sector into a higher level on the global value chain, and ensuring the sustainable development of the Chinese economy," Yi said.

The global value chain has in the past few decades become "a dominant feature of world trade, and services have played an increasingly important role in countries at all levels of development," said William Danvers, deputy secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

"Well-functioning transport, logistics, finance, communications, and other businesses and professional services are absolutely critical to ensure a seamless flow of goods and services along value chains. ... And research and development, design and marketing are all critical to competitiveness in high-end manufacturing," he added.

Danvers said that services now represent 80 percent of employment and 75 percent of GDP in developed countries. "In OECD countries, about 50 percent of the value added to the total exports comes from services. In China, the share is about 30 percent," he said.

"Raising this share as envisaged in the 12th Five-Year Plan presents a real opportunity for China to move up the value chain," he said. "Early analysis shows that reducing services trade barriers can increase imports, but they can also increase exports twice as much."

According to Yi: "While securing the reforms on the home front is essential, it's also important for China to engage with other WTO members in negotiating broader liberalization and more predictable multilateral rules so that its services exports can expand under stable and predictable conditions."

Opening-up of services is a two-way street and should be mutually beneficial, Wang noted in his address. "China is willing to be proactively engaged in multilateral negotiations in pushing forward services liberalization and a balanced development in the field worldwide," he said.

 

 

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