Countdown begins for service trade fair

The Beijing International Fair for Trade in Service will kick off in 50 days. Running from May 28 to June 1 at the Beijing National Conference Center, the fair is about to bring a grand festival for the service industry.

The event committee has released detailed plans for the fair including the exhibition, the venue map, and more than 80 scheduled conferences.

In recent years, China has been underpinning the importance of the third industry and put considerable efforts into pushing the internalization of this industry to a higher level. A series of free trade zones (FTZs) and trade in service pilot zones have been deployed in different cities, which have been successful. After setting up the Shanghai FTZ in 2013, seven more cities followed in 2016 to accelerate this opening-up policy.

Meanwhile, to further accelerate the development of trade in services and encourage innovation, 15 pilot zones were set up including Tianjin and Shanghai.

This year the State Council announced an expansion of the use of foreign investment, which has shown the nation’s determination in implementing the opening-up strategy.

Beijing, a pioneering city for the opening-up of the service industry, has already made progress and has helped 10 new industries to emerge, including finance, tourism, culture, healthcare, internet and information services. And this year the capital will keep pushing forward progress to deepen the opening-up trend.

With this as the backdrop, this year’s fair is expected to welcome domestic and international investors with confidence, shared experiences, industry insight exchanges, and opportunities for collaboration.

Highlighting the notion of “opening-up, innovation, and integration”, the fair will give the first priority to providing better service for potential business partners and encouraging negotiation towards collaboration.

Six areas will be put under the spotlight: scientific technology service, internet and information service, culture and education, financial services, business tourism, and healthcare.

Deeply aware of the importance of international and domestic industrial organization and agency in international trade, the fair has also invited a number of international organizations, delegates from various countries and regions, and both domestic and foreign government representatives.

More than thirty Chinese organizations in the third industry will also attend the grand event to host exhibitions and dialogues that showcase the latest products and modes, as well as accelerate integration and collaboration between different lines of work. The underlined areas include technology trade, e-commerce, culture, sports financial services, and Chinese medicine.

The conferences to be held this year will concentrate on what is trending, spanning from e-commerce, intellectual property, the mode of the sharing economy, and crossover collaboration.

It will also focus on the investment potential from abroad with a series of events and dialogues addressing the challenges and opportunities.

Up until now the preparation is under smooth progress and the grand event is expected to commence in 50 days.