China will introduce a negative list for cross-border trade in
services by the end of this year in order to promote the institutional
opening-up in the services sector, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said
Thursday. The country has seen robust services demand and relatively rapid
services imports, MOC official Xian Guoyi told a press conference. He said China will continue to open the services sector to the
outside world, import more high-quality services, actively expand
service exports, encourage high-quality services to go global and
enhance the international competitiveness of the country's services. While the COVID-19 pandemic has led to sharp declines of services
trade in many countries since March this year, it has also created new
opportunities for digital trade, new service consumption patterns, and
stimulated new drivers of growth for consumption upgrade, said Xian. The MOC will coordinate epidemic prevention and control with the
development of trade in services, seize the opportunity to develop
digital services trade and integrate services with the manufacturing
industry, deepen the opening-up of the service sector, and promote the
high-quality development of the country's trade in services.
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