By He Yin, People’s Daily

On Sept. 2, Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) via video.

“In developing the services sector and trade in services, China will work with all countries and parties to advance inclusive development through openness, promote connectivity and integration through cooperation, foster drivers for development through innovation, and create a better future through shared services, in a bid to jointly get the world economy onto the track of sustained recovery,” Xi said.

In his speech, Xi announced a series of measures of China to expand the opening up of the services sector and expounded on China’s important proposals for promoting the prosperity and development of international trade in services. The speech demonstrated China’s willingness and commitment to sharing the achievements of trade in services with other countries.

The world economic recovery remains sluggish today, with less than 3 percent growth for the year as estimated by some international institutions.

Trade in services is a pivotal component of international trade, and the services sector plays a vital role in economic and trade collaboration between nations.

At present, the deepening global cooperation in trade in services and the services sector, the accelerated process of digital-driven, smart and green growth, and burgeoning new technologies as well as new business forms and models would give a strong impetus to advancing economic globalization, reviving global growth and enhancing the resilience of world economic development.

With the theme of “Opening up leads development, cooperation delivers the future,” the 2023 CIFTIS aims to build an important platform for expanding opening up, deepening cooperation and leading innovation, and will inject new impetus into promoting world economic recovery through trade in services.

How will China, the second-largest economy in the world, further contribute to global economic recovery?

Noting that this year marks the 45th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up, Xi reaffirmed the country’s commitment to promoting high-standard opening up and advancing Chinese modernization on all fronts through high-quality development, thereby providing all countries with new opportunities for openness and cooperation.

China will create a “more open and more inclusive” development environment, strengthen the bond of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, strengthen innovation-driven development, and share the outcomes of the Chinese modernization drive with the rest of the world.

These proposals demonstrate China’s firm determination to follow the development trend of economic globalization, promote development by opening up and seek win-win results with cooperation. They also manifest China’s aspiration to lend new impetus to global development with the opportunities generated by the country’s vast market, and to increase the sense of gains of people around the world.

How will China, a powerhouse of trade in services, further promote international service trade?

Xi noted that China will expand a globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas, actively launch negotiations on the negative list for trade in services and investment, and further open up services areas such as telecommunications, tourism, law and vocational examinations.

China’s national integrated demonstration zone for greater openness in the services sector as well as eligible pilot free trade zones and free trade port will be the first to align their policies with high-standard international economic and trade rules, Xi said, adding that the country will widen access to its services sector, advance the opening up in cross-border services trade in an orderly manner, improve the level of standardization of services trade, and steadily expand institutional opening up.

China will deepen cooperation on services trade and digital trade with Belt and Road partner countries. It will accelerate the cultivation of new drivers for the digitalization of services trade, implement pilot reforms on basic data systems, and promote the development of digital trade through reform and innovation.

Besides, it will take the initiative to increase the imports of quality services, and encourage more exports of knowledge-intensive services.

These measures will not only help with the development of China’s service sector and trade in services, but also promote the prosperity of global trade in services and bring more benefits of trade in services to people around the world.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up. The world is seeing a more proactive China in expanding openness and cooperation, and a more attractive China to all countries eager for openness and cooperation.

China is continuously working to improve its business environment, further expanding the industries and areas in which foreign investment is encouraged, offering greater convenience for foreign investors in China, and promoting the signing of more high-standard free trade agreements and regional trade agreements. It has created a series of platforms of opening up including the CIFTIS and the China International Import Expo.

In the first seven months of this year, 28,406 foreign-funded enterprises were established across China, up 34 percent.

The CIFTIS this year has attracted 59 countries and 24 international organizations to set up exhibitions and conferences, with more than 2,400 companies participating offline. More than 500 Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders attended the event, and over 20 percent of participants were from outside China.

This fully proves the confidence of the international community in the Chinese economy, and the great importance it is attaching to the vast opportunities presented by the Chinese market.

The global economy thrives in openness and withers in seclusion. China will unswervingly expand high-level opening up, and work with all parties to uphold the hard-won free trade and multilateral trading regime, share in the historic opportunities in the development of global trade in services, and unite for an even brighter and more prosperous future for the world.

By He Yin, People’s Daily

China will host the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing this October. The forum is not only the highlight in commemorative events to mark the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but also an important platform for all partners to plan high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

China will take the holding of the forum as an opportunity to take stock of what it has achieved, chart the course for the future, and guide the continuous advancement of high-quality BRI cooperation. It will open up a chapter in the new era for the Silk Road featuring mutual benefit and win-win results between countries, friendship and cultural affinity between peoples and mutual learning between civilizations.

In September and October of 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in Kazakhstan and Indonesia respectively, ushering in a new era of international cooperation.

Over the past 10 years, the BRI has evolved from broad strokes to refined details, becoming the most popular international public good and largest-scale international cooperation platform.

Over the past 10 years, adhering to the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, the initiative has made fruitful achievements. It has been joined by more than three-quarters of countries in the world, established over 3,000 cooperation projects, mobilized nearly $1 trillion of investment worldwide and created 420,000 jobs for participating countries.

These achievements fully prove that the BRI is a “path of happiness” that benefits the whole world.

Based on win-win cooperation, the “path of happiness” is becoming wider.

In the past decade, a series of landmark projects have been built under the BRI, including the China-Europe freight train, the new western land-sea corridor, the China-Laos Railway, and the Piraeus port. A solid foundation has been laid for developing economic, trade and production capability cooperation and expanding energy and resource cooperation.

Looking around the world, the Norochcholai Coal Power Plant in Puttalam is supplying electricity for thousands of Sri Lankan families, the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya has boosted local economic growth by over 2 percentage points, and the Chinese vocational workshop program Luban Workshop has offered vocational training for young people in over 20 countries.

These have created an array of national landmarks, livelihood projects, and milestones of cooperation, injecting new impetus into participating countries.

A report issued by Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel, which analyzed the global public opinion’s concern and sentiment towards the BRI based on data from mainstream media reports of nearly 150 countries, noted that the initiative is viewed positively in most parts of the world.

Following green and innovative development, the “path of happiness” is making the world more beautiful.

From the BRI International Green Development Coalition and the Green Silk Road Envoys Program, to the Initiative for Belt And Road Partnership on Green Development, green development has become a defining feature of high-quality BRI cooperation.

Former Under-Secretary-General of the UN Erik Solheim said that the BRI has become the biggest driving force for global green development.

As a new round of sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation continues to evolve, BRI partners have worked actively to carry out international cooperation in emerging areas such as the digital economy. The Digital Silk Road is becoming a digital bridge facilitating a new type of globalization, and the connotation of the BRI is being continuously enriched.

Surakiart Sathirathai, former deputy prime minister of Thailand, said that Belt and Road cooperation has not only enhanced infrastructure connectivity, but also promoted people-to-people exchanges, cross-cultural communication and digital economy cooperation. It is conducive to building an open world economy and promoting global development and prosperity, he added.

All parties are looking forward to the upcoming third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, to further plan high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and energize the building of a global community of development with a shared future.

The forum is the top-level platform for international cooperation under the framework of the BRI, and an important platform for all partners to plan high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and share the benefits of mutually beneficial cooperation.

After the previous two forums, relevant parties have established a series of multilateral dialogue and cooperation platforms under the framework of the BRI, which fully demonstrated the concept, mechanism and measures of Belt and Road cooperation. Cooperation opportunities will be further expanded with the forum.

As a new decade of the BRI begins, the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will further consolidate international consensuses, draw a blueprint for cooperation, pave a wide path toward common development, and build bright prospects of green development, pushing for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.