Watching a movie in a cinema, ordering takeout, riding a bike, having a physical examination, or signing up children for interest-oriented classes... Chinese people have spent more and more money on "services" as the types offered for people to enjoy have become increasingly diverse.

(People's Daily Onlline/Weng Qiyu)

This is the inevitable outcome of economic development to a certain stage, and it is also an indispensable part of comprehensive national strength.

"After solving the problem of food and clothing, people's needs are no longer limited to physical goods that meet the basic needs of survival, but have been transformed into higher-level service-oriented consumer goods such as the pursuit of a higher quality of life and the spiritual practice of enjoying experiences beyond the material," said Pan Helin, executive dean of the Digital Economic Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.

The service sector surpassed China's secondary industries for the first time in 2013, and has become the largest industry sector and the main driver of economic growth. In 2019, the added value of the tertiary industry, represented by the service industry, accounted for 53.9 percent of the GDP, an increase of 0.6 percentage points over the previous year.

China's service industry remains determined to open wider to the outside world. During the first China International Import Expo, the report released by the Ministry of Commerce predicted that over the next five years from 2018, China's service imports will exceed $2.5 trillion, accounting for more than 10 percent of global service imports and contributing more than 20 percent to the growth of global service imports.

From January to July of this year, China's total import and export of services went down 15.2 percent from the same period last year. Although the current global economic and trade situation is grim and the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread globally, the development momentum of China's service trade is generally stable.

China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), the first major international economic and trade event held offline in China since the outbreak of COVID-19, will show the international community China's remarkable achievements made in the prevention and control of the epidemic, and in economic and social developments.

Along with boosting confidence in global development, this will also send a positive signal of adhering to economic globalization and strengthening international economic and trade cooperation.

The theme of CIFTIS this year, "Global Services, Shared Prosperity," accurately reflects China's position, according to Xian Guoyi, director-general of the Ministry of Commerce's Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services at the press conference on Sept. 3.

The director-general added that "in the future, we will continue to open up the service sector to the outside world and import more high-quality services. At the same time, we are also actively expanding the export of services, promoting more of China's quality services to go abroad, and enhancing the international competitiveness of China's services. "

At the CIFTIS, the world will see China's determination to open up and the sincerity of "China's services"; the world will see that China's economy has taken the lead in coming out of the shadows of the pandemic, sounding the bugle of global economic recovery with trade in services.