Beijing, 02 Sept. 2023 (Xinhua News)

China on Saturday pledged to advance the opening-up of its service sector, a resolute move to unleash growth potential and share business opportunities with countries and enterprises worldwide.

Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a series of measures for expanding the opening up of services sector while addressing the Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) via video.

Eighty-three countries and international organizations are attending the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services, and more than 2,400 companies are participating in offline exhibitions.

Themed “Opening-up leads development, cooperation delivers the future,” the 2023 CIFTIS is being held in Beijing from Sept. 2 to 6 and features over 200 varied events, including forums, negotiations, and summits.

To make its development environment more open and inclusive, China will expand the globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas, and actively engage in negotiations on the negative list for trade in services and investment, Xi said. China will open wider in such services areas as telecommunications, tourism, law and vocational examinations, he said.

“We will widen access to China’s 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,” Xi said.

Xi emphasized that the country will share the outcomes of the Chinese modernization drive with the rest of the world by vigorously boosting domestic demand, accelerating the building of a robust domestic market, taking the initiative to increase the imports of quality services, and encouraging more exports of knowledge-intensive services.

“We will lend new impetus to global development with the opportunities generated by China’s vast market, and offer more and better Chinese services to the world through high-quality development in a bid to increase the sense of gains of people around the world,” Xi said.

The CIFTIS has sent positive signals of China’s persistence in economic globalization and embodied China’s consistent commitment to sharing development opportunities with the rest of the world, said Jack Chan, chairman of EY China, adding that it plays an important role as a platform for promoting global economic recovery.

People in fields such as supply chains, IT, construction, and finance are closely watching opportunities in the global low-carbon scenario, especially the vast opportunities in China’s dual carbon targets, said Qin Hu, vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and chief representative of EDF’s Beijing Representative Office.