City's achievements showcased at Beijing Services fair

A Shanghai Theme Day event was held on Saturday at the six day China International Fair for Trade in Services 2020 in Beijing.

It focused on the theme of “Excellent service connects the world.”

As the only Guest of Honor city at the fair, Shanghai's exhibition area showcased the city's achievements in innovation and development of trade in services over the past 30 years.

A total of 346 enterprises were registered in the Shanghai trade group, and 103 enterprises participated in the fair both online and offline, according to the Shanghai Commission of Commerce. They  focused on key areas such as health and epidemic prevention, commercial services, and cultural and creative industry, launching a batch of new products and services with strong competitive advantages.

On the Shanghai Theme Day, overseas key market development guides for trade in services were launched, covering countries and regions including Panama and Germany. Such guides have been compiled for seven overseas key markets such as South Africa and Hungary, as the city has always been committed to helping enterprises expand businesses in overseas markets.

Meanwhile, Fan Shijie, deputy director general of the Department of Trade in Services of the Ministry of Commerce, and Hua Yuan, director of Shanghai Commission of Commerce, jointly released a series of reports on the city's foreign trade in services.

Also on Saturday morning, a group of nearly 40 projects were signed to be launched in three key areas — the Pudong New Area, Lingang Special Area and Hongqiao Business District. The projects are mainly involved in fields such as financial technology, pharmaceutical research and development, the cultural and creative sector, logistics and transportation, professional services and e-commerce.

The Bank of Communications Financial Technology Co, with a registered capital of 600 million yuan (US$), will be established in the Lingang new area. It aims to improve the quality and structure of financial services by means of financial technology, and to strengthen frontier research and application, as well as promote the export business of financial technology services. 

The Idol Group, a new e-commerce infrastructure provider, will establish a global hub for the live streaming industry in Yangshan Port, aiming to develop businesses in offshore trade, e-commerce, digital and financial services.

As a manufacturer specializing in ambient constant temperature heat pump systems, Mannz Environmental Technology GmbH from Germany plans to invest nearly 100 million euros in the Hongqiao Central Business District to set up its Asia Pacific sales and exhibition center.

Huibai New Materials Technology (Shanghai) Ltd, meanwhile, will establish a national standard R&D Center and laboratory in the Hongqiao CBD to develop products such as new energy automotive materials and components, as well as aerospace materials, rail transit materials, and military protection materials.

On the afternoon of Shanghai Theme Day, a forum was organized focusing on the city's digital trade innovation and development, with the theme “Shanghai's Digital Trade — new technologies, new infrastructure, new opportunities”.

Attendees including economists, government officials and business executives expounded the new driving forces and new opportunities of the innovative development of digital trade. They also discussed such topics as reshaping the pattern of international trade in the digital economy, digital development of trade in services, industrial chains of the digital economy, digital transformation, cross-border digital financial services, and overseas cloud services.

Zhao Jinping, research fellow and former director-general of the Research Department of Foreign Economic Relations of Development Research Center of the State Council, pointed out that China has become the largest digital goods trading country in the world.

On the basis of analyzing the huge space for improvement in China’s digital services trade and the achievements and shortcomings in key areas, Zhao put forward ways to increase innovation input to achieve new breakthroughs in key links of the digital industry.

He also highlighted five major measures for expanding institutional opening-up, such as speeding up the construction of new infrastructure, building a pilot institutional system for  orderly and secure data flows across borders, and expanding the opening-up of investment access in the service sector.