The service industry is an important area of international economic and trade cooperation, and it is also a key area for China to build a new development pattern and promote a new round of high-level opening up. **The Economic Work Conference made arrangements for expanding high-level opening-up, requiring "expanding intermediate goods, services, digital, and cross-border e-commerce exports" and "relaxing market access for telecommunications, medical and other service industries". This points out the direction for further promoting the expansion and opening up of the service industry, and also puts forward higher requirements for better benchmarking international high-standard economic and trade rules and promoting high-level institutional opening-up.
The opening up of the global service industry is an inevitable trend.
In recent years, affected by factors such as the rise of global protectionism, continuous geopolitical frictions, and the new crown epidemic, the global industrial chain pattern has accelerated its adjustment, and the manufacturing industry has become the focus of competition among countries, but the general trend of the opening up and development of the global service industry has become increasingly prominent, and the opening up and cooperation of the service industry have continued to deepen, and have become a key area for the reconstruction of international economic and trade rules.
Global FDI continues to flow into the service sector. Since 2020, the uncertainty of world economic growth has increased, multinational enterprises have become more cautious in investment, the trend of asset-light investment has been obvious, and the amount and proportion of foreign direct investment absorbed by the service industry have increased significantly. From 2019 to 2022, the amount of foreign direct investment absorbed by the global service industry rose from less than US$700 billion to more than US$1 trillion, accounting for 492% to 584%, an all-time high.
The level of liberalization of global services** is increasing. In recent years, emerging markets and developing countries have effectively improved the level of opening up of the service industry by relaxing restrictions on foreign ownership and relaxing foreign investment review requirements. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Service** Restriction Index (STRI), the global average of the Services** Restriction Index has fluctuated in recent years. Among them, the non-OECD countries' service ** restriction index has decreased significantly more than the average, and the gap with OECD countries has been narrowing. The level of liberalization of global services** has continued to increase overall.
The service industry has become a key area for the reconstruction of international economic and trade rules. With the development of digital globalization and global servitization, the proportion of services in bilateral and regional investment negotiations has gradually increased, and the rules of high-standard, wide-coverage, and post-border services have gradually increased in regional free trade agreements. Since 2020, the world** organization has received a total of 38 notifications of regional** agreements in services, accounting for nearly 50% of the total number of notifications of new regional **agreements, of which the number of notifications of regional ** agreements involving services in 2020 and 2022 is higher than the number of notifications of regional ** agreements involving goods. In key service areas, international economic and trade rules generally adopt the negative list method, and breakthroughs have been made in many aspects, such as relaxing investment market access, expanding the coverage of non-discriminatory treatment, and relaxing supervision.
The opening up of China's service industry has been promoted in depth.
In recent years, China has continued to reduce the restrictions on foreign investment access, increase the number of encouraged items in the service industry, and continuously expand the scope and scope of opening up the service industry. At the same time, China relies on the pilot free trade zone, Hainan free port, the national service industry to expand the opening up of the comprehensive pilot demonstration, service innovation and development pilot, etc., to carry out pioneering exploration. Among them, the comprehensive pilot demonstration of the expansion and opening up of the national service industry has launched more than 1,300 pilot measures in 13 industries such as science and technology, telecommunications, cultural tourism, and finance, and has replicated and promoted more than 180 innovative achievements in 9 batches to the whole country, playing an important leading role in the opening up of the national service industry. To further promote the expansion and opening up of the service industry, it is necessary to make efforts in the following four aspects.
First, the breadth of opening up needs to be further broadened. According to the relevant surveys conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the degree of openness of China's manufacturing industry is basically at the same level as that of developed economies, while the degree of openness of the service industry is generally lower than that of developed economies, and there is also a certain gap compared with some emerging economies. The survey also shows that China's opening up process in the field of value-added telecommunications, medical and health services is lagging behind, and the development situation of global service and investment cooperation is not yet adaptable, and the breadth of the opening up of the service industry needs to be further broadened.
Second, the depth of opening up needs to be further expanded. From the perspective of the degree of openness of China's service industry, post-border measures such as business models, licenses, business scopes, operating conditions, and business licenses for foreign-invested enterprises in the service industry need to be further opened, and the reform of service industry standards and mutual recognition of professional qualifications still needs to be further deepened. For example, the relevant restrictive measures in the financial sector have been cleared, but there are still difficulties such as the limited business scope of foreign financial institutions and the long approval cycle, and it is necessary to take pragmatic and effective measures to promote deeper opening-up.
Third, the opening accuracy needs to be further improved. As the focus of international economic and trade rules negotiations focuses on the service sector, new economic and trade rules in this field will continue to emerge, which may pose challenges to relevant domestic rules. Compared with the rules of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, there are different degrees of gaps in China's post-border measures such as intellectual property rights, competition policy, and subsidies. For example, in terms of procurement, there are problems such as the procurement subject and the scope of the project are still small. At the same time, in terms of docking with international high-standard economic and trade rules, the accuracy of docking needs to be improved. For example, in the digital domain, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) both cover key digital issues such as consumer protection and personal information protection, while domestic rules mainly focus on some digital issues such as cross-border data flows.
Fourth, the security of openness needs to be further enhanced. Today's world has entered a new period of turbulence and change, economic and non-economic factors are intertwined, many countries' attitudes towards economic and trade cooperation are more complex, and the external environment facing the development of foreign trade is becoming more severe. All these may make the development of China's service ** encounter more difficulties. The security risks faced by the opening up of key service industries have risen, and higher requirements have also been put forward for the security of the opening up of the service industry, and it is urgent to improve the ability and level of risk identification, prevention and control in promoting the expansion and opening up of the service industry.
Clarify the key measures for expanding opening-up.
Promoting the expansion of the opening up of the service industry is the key direction of expanding high-level opening up at present. In view of the current institutional and institutional obstacles faced by the expansion and opening up of the service industry, such as market access, industry supervision, and cross-border data flow, it is necessary to give full play to the role of open platforms such as the comprehensive pilot demonstration of the expansion and opening up of the national service industry, benchmark international high-standard economic and trade rules, and further promote the expansion and opening up of the service industry in a wider scope, wider fields and deeper levels, so as to cultivate new advantages in international competition in the service industry.
The first is to relax market access for the service industry and optimize post-border measures. It is necessary to improve the management system of pre-entry national treatment plus negative list for foreign investment, continue to reasonably reduce the negative list for foreign investment access, relax access by category, promote the full implementation of opening measures in the fields of science and technology services, business services, and financial services, continue to deepen the opening up of value-added telecommunications, education, medical and health care, and promote the introduction of the national version and the pilot free trade zone version of the negative list for cross-border services. At the same time, it is necessary to continue to clear up the restrictions outside the negative list for foreign investment.
The second is to build a high-standard international economic and trade rules and build a high-standard service industry open system. It is necessary to strengthen the docking of internal and external standards and mutual recognition of qualifications in the service industry, and accelerate the elimination of barriers within the border. Accelerate the implementation of the "Reference Document on Domestic Regulation of Services", strengthen the convergence of domestic and foreign regulations, and further improve the level of liberalization and facilitation of services. In the national comprehensive demonstration zone for the expansion and opening up of the service industry, as well as the conditional free pilot zone and free port, we will take the lead in docking with international high-standard economic and trade rules, focusing on cross-border services, intellectual property rights, e-commerce and digital and other fields, accelerate the promotion of independent opening-up, innovate and launch institutional achievements that are benchmarked against international high-standard economic and trade rules, and accumulate experience in rule docking.
The third is to strengthen the supply guarantee of factors and enhance the opening level of the service industry. It is necessary to speed up the simplification and optimization of visa procedures for foreign nationals in China, and improve the level of facilitation for foreign nationals to work in China. In response to restrictions on the qualifications of foreign talents, support all localities to learn from the practices of Beijing, Hainan and other countries in expanding the opening up of the service industry, and introduce a list of overseas vocational qualification certificates, open professional qualification examinations to overseas personnel, facilitate the practice of overseas professionals in the local area, and explore the establishment of an open and convenient practice system for overseas professionals.
Fourth, we should coordinate openness and security, and build a risk prevention and control system for the opening up of the service industry. In the process of opening up and developing the service industry, we must always adhere to the overall outlook, coordinate openness and security, strengthen risk awareness and bottom-line thinking, and effectively improve risk assessment, early warning and prevention and control mechanisms. Explore the adoption of the principle of categorical and hierarchical management, accelerate the construction of laws and regulations, improve policies and standards, optimize technical services, and ensure the smooth and orderly development of relevant work. Establish and improve the security management system for cross-border data transfer, actively participate in the formulation of international rules for cross-border data flow, and ensure the security of cross-border data flow.
This article**:Economy** Author: Lin Meng, director and researcher of the Institute of Modern Chains, Academy of International Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Commerce).
*:Economy**.