Greater openness in digital trade prioritized

China will take further steps to foster greater openness in the digital trade sector to enhance its global competitiveness, as the external trade environment faces intensifying headwinds, officials and experts said on Thursday.

"China will expand openness in an orderly manner in areas such as telecommunications, internet services and culture," Vice-Commerce Minister Sheng Qiuping said at a news conference. "The country will also encourage foreign businesses to increase investment in the digital field."

Sheng said the cross-border services trade negative list, a mechanism which clearly defines sectors off-limits to foreign investment and by default leaves others open, will be implemented to good effect.

China will also accelerate the formulation of digital trade-related standards and promote their international alignment, he said, adding that the country will continue to advance its accession into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement.

China's imports and exports of digitally deliverable services reached 1.5 trillion yuan ($210.6 billion) in the first half, while cross-border e-commerce trade hit 1.3 trillion yuan, both reaching new highs, Sheng's ministry said.

Against the backdrop of slowing global economic growth and rising trade protectionism, China's ability to buck the global trend and achieve robust service trade growth is largely attributable to the rapid development of digital trade, said Zhou Mi, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

The digital trade surge has also contributed to the optimization of its trading structure, with a greater emphasis on high value-added, knowledge-intensive services, Zhou said.

China's digitally deliverable services trade is projected to account for more than 45 percent of the country's total services trade by 2029, and this share is expected to exceed 50 percent by 2035, according to a report on China's development of digital trade released by the Ministry of Commerce.

As both a digital economy powerhouse and a major trading nation, China possesses a unique combination of robust industrial foundations and vast market potential for the development of digital trade, said Zhao Fujun, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council.

This advantage is particularly evident in areas such as cross-border e-commerce and financial technology, where China has nurtured a cohort of globally competitive platform enterprises, Zhao said.

As a major hub of China's cross-border e-commerce development, Hangzhou in Zhejiang province currently is home to around two-thirds of China's cross-border e-commerce platforms, accounting for 40 percent of the country's total cross-border payment settlement volume, said Yao Gaoyuan, mayor of Hangzhou.