Ding Xuexiang, Chinese Vice Premier and Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee delivered a keynote speech at the Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2024 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing on September 12. (Photo by Yin Bogu from Xinhua News Agency)
The Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2024 CIFTIS was held in Beijing on September 12. Yin Li, Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, delivered the congratulatory letter from President Xi Jinping at the summit. Ding Xuexiang, Chinese Vice Premier and Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee attended the summit and delivered a keynote speech.
Vice Premier Ding said that President Xi’s important video addresses or congratulatory letters to the CIFTIS in the past six consecutive years speaks volumes about the nation’s unwavering commitment to promoting high-quality development through high-level opening-up. Since entering the new era, China has actively promoted high-level opening-up and accelerated the innovative development of the services sector and trade in services, achieving remarkable results.
He stress that China is committed to deepening cooperation in the services sector and trade in services with all partners, promoting high-quality development through high-level opening-up, and contributing more to global economic prosperity. First, China will share new opportunities for open development by advancing institutional opening-up in services trade, aligning with international high-standard trade rules, improving the negative list management system for cross-border services trade, and gradually opening up the cross-border services trade across the nation. Second, it is imperative to jointly cultivate new drivers for innovative development by enhancing the management and promotion systems for technology trade, and accelerating the digital, intelligent, and green transition of services trade. Third, collaborative efforts should be made to explore new opportunities in China’s huge market, implement pilot projects to further open up areas such as cloud computing, biotechnology, and wholly foreign-owned hospitals, and promote the integration of services trade with high-end manufacturing. Fourth, it is crucial to jointly create a new environment for cooperation and development. This includes enhancing the openness of free trade agreements, expanding proactive opening-up and unilateral opening-up to the least developed countries, and strengthening services and digital trade cooperation among BRI partners.
Levan Davitashvili, Georgia’s First Vice Prime Minister, and Daren Tang, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), attended and addressed the summit. Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), delivered a video speech.
Prior to the summit, Vice Premier Ding and Party Secretary Yin visited the CIFTIS exhibition and talked to representatives of the participating companies. Ding stated that China will only open itself ever wider to the outside world, and enterprises from all countries are welcome to invest and start businesses in China, thus better sharing China’s development opportunities. He also encouraged Chinese enterprises to enhance their service capabilities and standards, delivering more high-quality services to people from around the world.
The summit was also attended by around 800 participants, including officials from relevant departments and local authorities in China, representatives from various countries and regions, and heads of international organizations, multinational corporations, and overseas business associations.
