How policies promote innovation in game-changing areas

For decades, trade in goods has been enabling China's rise as a global manufacturing powerhouse. The country's exporters have been supplying the world a plethora of products ranging from massive things like trains, excavators and electronics items to lifestyle stuff like clothing, toys and pillows.

Now, however, the story is changing. The thriving services sector is prompting China to innovate and expand its trade in services. This is expected to sharpen the edge of its dual-circulation paradigm, a new pattern of development that focuses on the domestic economy, but also stresses a positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows.

Compared with trade in goods, which involves the delivery of tangible products through transportation by sea, land, air and other means, trade in services has characteristics such as being green, low-carbon, high value-added and knowledge-intensive. It has a small fluctuation range, and its development tends to be relatively stable — and external environmental changes do not influence it much.