In his speech to the Global Service Trade Summit of the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services, President Xi Jinping mentioned that "China will adhere to promoting high-level opening up to the outside world, comprehensively advancing Chinese style modernization with high-quality development, and providing new opportunities for opening up and cooperation among countries. China is willing to work with all countries to promote inclusive development with service opening up, promote linkage and integration with service cooperation, cultivate development momentum with service innovation, create a better future with service sharing, and jointly promote the world economy to embark on a sustained recovery track. Using digital technology to promote high-quality development of service trade is an important breakthrough in China's innovation and transformation of service trade, an important means for building a strong trading nation in the new development pattern, and an important driving force for building a higher-level open economic system.
1¡¢ Understanding the Importance of Digital Technology in Promoting High Quality Development of Service Trade
The all-round penetration and breakthrough application of digital technology have brought innovative changes to the development of service trade in terms of resource allocation, structural upgrading, efficiency improvement, and governance system. A comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the profound impact of digital technology on the field of service trade is of great significance for China to achieve high-quality development of service trade and build a strong trading nation.
Digital technology helps to reduce transaction costs in service trade and expand trade scale. The rapid growth and expansion of service trade are closely related to the widespread application of digital technology. The development of digital technology has improved the efficiency of digital networks, reduced communication and transaction costs, and minimized the restrictive effect of spatial distance on trade. Compared with traditional trade, service trade has the characteristics of intangibility, inseparability, and easy replicability, which leads to the synchronicity of its production and consumption. The widespread application of digital technologies represented by big data and cloud computing has relaxed the temporal and spatial limitations in the process of service provision, enhanced the tradability of services, and made music performances, sports events, medical education, and other services that were originally limited to live performances available globally, thereby expanding the space for service trade and promoting an increase in the relative share of service trade in the international trade structure. With the rise of platform enterprises, data service products with data as the core element continue to innovate, which helps to enrich the types of service products and further expand the scale of service trade.
Digital technology helps promote multi chain integration of service trade and enhance trade competitiveness. The development of digital technology has effectively alleviated information asymmetry in trade, thereby reducing transaction costs. The Internet platform connects tens of thousands of producers, suppliers, retailers and consumers. Through the accurate matching of production and demand, it has improved the efficiency of resource allocation and industrial division of labor, promoted the coordinated development of service trade industry chain, supply chain and value chain, promoted the deepening of industrial chain and value chain division of labor, and further accelerated the reshaping of the global trade network and industrial chain division of labor, changed the pattern of global benefit distribution, and greatly improved the country's trade competitiveness. Digital technology promotes the transformation of service trade towards intelligence, digitization, and networking, driving the industrial and value chains towards the high-end, which helps to enhance the status and influence of China's service trade in global service trade.
Digital technology helps to improve the utilization of service trade resources and enhance social welfare. The widespread application of digital technology enables enterprises (suppliers) to accurately measure consumer needs, thereby opening up various new service business models and promoting the transformation of service trade towards personalization, diversification, and customization. In terms of education, online education has to some extent alleviated the imbalance of educational resources by creating various personalized online solutions. In terms of healthcare, online service platforms such as consultation and remote consultation have improved the accessibility of medical services. Under the condition of constant monetary income, digital service trade has improved consumer welfare by reducing prices and diversifying service supply. Digital technology continues to empower the socio-economic environment, helping to improve the utilization of social resources, meet the growing needs of the people for a better life, and thereby enhance the overall social welfare of trade.
Digital technology helps empower trade rule changes and improve trade governance systems. Trade rules are closely related to trade methods. Since the 20th century, the traditional trade mode has mainly manifested as the final product trade of "one country produces, one country sells", with trade rules centered on reciprocal tariff reduction and expanding market access. In the 21st century, the main mode of international trade is the value chain trade of "world production, global sales", and "post border measures" represented by services, investment, intellectual property protection, competition policy, etc. have become the core of trade rules. In the era of digital trade, digital technology has greatly alleviated the constraints of traditional trade barriers such as geographical distance and infrastructure. Market access for digital products, cross-border free flow of data, and cybersecurity have become key issues of concern in the new trade rules. In the era of digital economy, only by continuously improving digital technology rules and digital trade governance system can transaction costs caused by institutional factors be greatly reduced, thereby promoting further development of the global value chain.
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