CIFTIS promotes development of international trade in services

The 2022 China International Fair for Trade in Services in Beijing from Wednesday to Monday marks the 10th year that China is hosting the fair. Over the past 10 years, the fair has not only built an exchange platform for international cooperation in service fields and injected new momentum into the development of global service trade, but also provided important support to the high-quality development of China's service industries.

Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global service trade is still active and China's service trade, in particular, still shows strong growth momentum. Since 2012, China's trade in services has maintained an average annual growth rate of 6.1 percent, 3.1 percentage points higher than the global growth rate, and as of 2021, China's service trade has been ranked second in the world for eight consecutive years.

Over the past 10 years, the added value of China's service industry has increased by 1.49 times, with accumulated imported services exceeding $4 trillion, demonstrating that the service trade has become an important growth point of China's foreign economic and trade cooperation. Over the past decade, China has worked with the rest of the world to foster an open and inclusive environment for cooperation, share the opportunities of trade in services and promote global economic recovery and growth. The number of countries and regions having service trade links with China has increased to more than 200. China's services imports and exports exceeded $800 billion for the first time in 2021, from $470.58 billion in 2012.