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China to open major services trade fair, as it swiftly pushes for high-quality growth, opening-up
Last Updated: 2021-09-02 08:08 | Global Times
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China's annual services trade fair is set to commence on Thursday in Beijing as previously planned, convincingly attesting to the economy's ability to push for high-quality growth while effectively containing COVID-19, participants and observers said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will deliver a keynote speech at the Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2021 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) via video on Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) announced on Wednesday, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

The CIFTIS, which is scheduled to run until September 7, will be held in two venues for the first time, with the Shougang Industrial Park - one of the competition venues for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics - designated as the new host venue, aside from the China National Convention Center. Construction at the Shougang venue was completed on Wednesday.

The exhibition area of the 2021 CIFTIS has increased by 20,000 square meters from last year's event, and the number of companies that will be exhibiting on-site has jumped 6 percent, Vice Mayor of Beijing Yang Jinbai said at a recent press conference.

Moreover, more than 10,000 companies from 153 countries and regions have registered for online and on-site exhibitions, up five from last year, Yang revealed, adding that more of the world's top 500 firms and overseas institutions will be attending this year's trade fair.

Virus containment efforts are also in the spotlight, with the event's organizing committee setting up a new virus prevention and control work coordination team.

Public health experts will be organized to carry out virus risk assessments in a continuous manner to formulate containment work agendas and emergency plans as well as guidance for different people. Vaccinations, epidemiological surveys, health monitoring, and nucleic acid testing - among other measures - will be strictly implemented to ensure "zero infections" at this year's CIFTIS, the vice mayor stressed.

On-site attendance necessitates full vaccination, and participants in the Thursday summit need to present negative results of a nucleic acid test conducted within 24 hours prior to the summit. Those attending CIFTIS activities between Friday and Tuesday are required to provide negative test results done within 48 hours before the conference, and they have to take an extra nucleic acid test on Sunday, the Global Times learned.

As a comprehensive demonstration zone for greater openness in the services sector, Beijing, the CIFTIS host, has a good chance to build its strength globally in the services trade, especially in areas such as technology, the digital economy, finance, education, healthcare and professional services, Yang Shujuan, Beijing managing partner at Ernst & Young (EY), said in a statement sent to the Global Times.

Digitalization is becoming an important trend for global services trade, Yang said, revealing that EY will be at the newly created digital services special zone, which focuses on the digital transformation of the economy and industries.

The country's prowess in commodity trade and its rising profile in outbound investment terms that has been buoyed by the Belt and Road Initiative has laid the groundwork for its shift toward a focus on services trade, Cao Heping, a professor of economics at Peking University in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

With digital services trade in focus at the trade fair, the country is expected to flex its digital economic muscles that have played an important part in rebooting the economy amid the pandemic, Cao said, and the growing prevalence of digital trade has effectively offset the inevitable losses the virus has inflicted on the brick-and-mortar economy.

The event will accelerate the recovery of the services trade, as the application of digital technologies into the trade fair, held both in-person and online, will allow companies to communicate and negotiate either screen-to-screen or face-to-face, thereby helping them explore business opportunities to offset the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic.

The CIFTIS would spur the growth momentum of the services trade and serve as a significant platform to expand services market opening, Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Bingnan told reporters.

In the first half of the year, the value added of China's services sector hit 29.6 trillion yuan ($4.58 trillion), accounting for 55.7 percent of the total GDP, up from 54.5 percent a year earlier, vigorously underpinning the quality development of the services trade, according to Wang.

He expected the CIFTIS to create new opportunities for opening up the services sector. China has already been moving swiftly to open up its services market to foreign businesses.

In a fresh move, South China's Hainan Province on Wednesday unveiled an implementation plan for deepening reform and opening-up, aiming to push for cross-border goods and services trade, and facilitate new types of international trade settlements.

Additionally, China has shortened negative lists for foreign investment for four years running and unveiled its first negative list on cross-border services trade for the Hainan Free Trade Port. The official signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership also means the addition of 22 new services sub-sectors to China's commitment to opening up 100 services sub-sectors under the WTO classification when it joined the trade organization.

(Editor:Fu Bo)

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China to open major services trade fair, as it swiftly pushes for high-quality growth, opening-up
Source:Global Times | 2021-09-02 08:08
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