Aerial photo taken on May 26, 2021 shows the Yangpu international container port at Yangpu economic development zone in south China's Hainan Province. (Xinhua/Pu Xiaoxu)

The cross-border trade in services of China is projected to usher in rapid development driven by favorable policies, reported China Securities Journal Monday quoting experts.

China has currently entered into a stage of high-quality development, and service trade has become an increasingly important driving force for the country to build a new development pattern and foster new advantages in international cooperation and competition, facing unprecedented development opportunities, said Chen Chunjiang, head of the Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC).

"At present, China's super-large market advantage has been further strengthened. The added value of China's service sector reached 29.6 trillion yuan in the first half of this year, accounting for 55.7 percent of the GDP, up from 54.5 percent last year, providing strong industrial support for high-quality development of trade in services," Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Bingnan stated at a press conference held recently.

In recent years, China has introduced multiple policies to push forward institutional opening-up of cross-border trade in services.

On August 26, China's first negative list for cross-border trade in services took effective in the southern island province of Hainan, helping promote liberalization of service trade and improve the overall openness of China.

Earlier, the Shanghai Municipal People's Government released the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for the development of the Lingang Special Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ), proposing to explore ways to ease or remove market access restrictions on cross-border trade in services, involving cross-border delivery, overseas consumption and movement of natural persons, etc.

According to Wang Bingnan, MOC has put forward 36 measures in six aspects jointly with relevant departments to expand the opening-up of the service sector over the past year, and important progress has been made, such as the establishment of the comprehensive demonstration zone for expanding the opening-up of the service sector in Beijing and the China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone.

Many experts believe that cross-border service trade will become a key driver for the global trade.

"The average annual growth rate of global cross-border trade in services has been twice that of trade in goods over the past decade with the exception of last year, indicating the trend to come," said Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen, adding that with technological progress, the development potential of service trade, especially cross-border service trade, will be further stimulated.

In the long run, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated the digital development of trade in services, bringing new opportunities for the restructuring of trade in services and the development of new types of trade in services and spawning new forms and models of business such as telemedicine, sharing platforms and collaborative office, which has expanded the development space of global trade in services, noted Wang Bingnan.

According to him, to promote high-quality development of trade in services, efforts will be made to further related reform, ease market access in the service sector, expand opening-up of key service areas, develop digital trade, expand export of feature services, and improve multilateral and bilateral cooperation mechanisms for trade in services.