China's service sector has huge potential

Visitors learn about a robot at the booth of China Construction First Group during the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) at Shougang Park in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 3, 2023. (Xinhua/Li Xin)

BEIJING, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- At an exhibition booth of the ongoing 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) held in Beijing, visitors are queuing up for free notebooks printed with Arabic architecture pictures.

The notebooks are special gifts for visitors prepared by Etihad Airways from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Italian staffer with the airline company's Beijing office, who is in charge of the booth, uses simple Chinese to promote their business.

The large number of visitors at the fair reflects accelerating recovery of China's service trade.

Emirates, an airline company from the UAE that also participates in this year's CIFTIS, has intensified the frequency of its air services to China starting from Sept. 1, based on the resumption of its Dubai to Beijing route this March.

The company now has two flights bound for Beijing every day, as the passenger traffic service recovers to the pre-COVID level.

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 events, including forums, negotiations, and summits.

Eighty-three countries and international organizations are attending the fair, and more than 2,400 companies are participating in offline exhibitions.

"Service trade has become an important driving force of globalization. As digital technologies have dramatically increased the tradability of services, huge development potentials of the service sector have been unleashed," said Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen during a subforum on the development of trade in services.

China is an advocate of international cooperation and sustainable development, said Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in China, at the same subforum, calling for raising the spirit of cooperation and collaboration.

China's service sector has shown strong resilience. In 2022, the country's total service imports and exports amounted to nearly 6 trillion yuan (about 836 billion U.S. dollars), up 12.9 percent year on year, a record new high. Such a stunning figure also made China rank second in the world for nine consecutive years in terms of service import and export value.

"We've run businesses in China for over a decade, a witness of its catering market's great consumption potentials with regard to wine," said Cheng Cheng, sales director of the Beijing branch of Shanghai SinoDrink Trading Co., Ltd., at a wine booth.

As a Chinese subsidiary of Leone Alato, an Italian winery group, the company has teamed up with major wine-producing areas in Italy, displaying and selling wine in China via cross-border e-commerce platforms and other forms over the years.

"Since the beginning of this year, China's consumption recovery in its catering sector has also fueled our business growth and boosted our confidence in development," Cheng added.

"CIFTIS helps our companies engage in a direct relationship with Chinese companies, improve the knowledge of both sides and talk about complete development projects," said Gianpaolo Bruno, the Italian Trade Commissioner of the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) Beijing Office and Coordinator for China and Mongolia.

"I believe that our efforts are sure to pay off, and Italian companies are very keen to strengthen their cooperation with Chinese counterparts," he added.