□ our reporter Meng Ni
China’s service outsourcing industry continued to grow rapidly in the 14th five year plan and maintained a good start in 2021. Where will this big ship sail in 2022?
Zheng Wei, an associate researcher of China service outsourcing research center, believes that the rise in quantity and quality in 2021 has laid a solid foundation for the high-quality development of service outsourcing in 2022. Looking forward to 2022, China’s service outsourcing development will show five highlights.
First, the emerging digital service outsourcing will accelerate its development. From a global perspective, with the accelerated popularization of the new generation of information technology, the transformation of service outsourcing industry to digital and intelligent has become the general trend. The development of China’s emerging digital service outsourcing started early. In addition, the state attaches great importance to the transformation and upgrading of service outsourcing and accurately grasps the future development trend, which has laid a solid foundation for improving the overall competitiveness of China’s service outsourcing industry and further expanding the international market share. Its performance in 2022 is worth looking forward to.
Second, RCEP brings opportunities for the development of service outsourcing. RCEP came into force on January 1 this year, which is a great benefit to China’s service outsourcing industry. The scope, willingness and level of cooperation between China and countries in the region will be greatly improved. In 2022, RCEP is expected to become an accelerator to promote international cooperation in service outsourcing in the region.
Third, the effect of industrial transformation and upgrading will further appear. In 2022, as the transformation and upgrading effect of the service outsourcing industry continues to appear, the industry structure will be further optimized, the proportion of traditional ITO business may further decline, and the proportion of BPO and KPO business with higher knowledge content, technical level and added value will continue to increase, especially in the field of KPO, digital technology, new energy technology R & D, pharmaceutical and Biotechnology R & D Maintenance, industrial design and other fields will accelerate development.
Fourth, the role of demonstration cities will be further highlighted. In November 2021, China’s service outsourcing demonstration cities were expanded to include six cities with better service outsourcing development, such as Xuzhou and Foshan, which injected fresh blood into the construction of China’s service outsourcing demonstration cities, making the demonstration cities broader, larger and stronger. For a long time, the demonstration city has been the main force in the development of service outsourcing in China, with the contract amount and execution amount accounting for about 90% of the total. In 2022, the demonstration cities will continue to shoulder the important tasks in the transformation and upgrading of China’s service outsourcing industry, high-quality development and leading the demonstration.
Five, one belt, one road, the cooperation potential of countries (regions) is expected to be further released. One belt, one road international cooperation has been continuously promoted. China’s cooperation with the countries (regions) in the field of outsourcing has been growing rapidly and has great potential. Besides, China has one belt, one road area, which has a comparative advantage in the emerging service outsourcing field. Therefore, the technology content and added value level of offshore business is higher, which is more conducive to China’s enterprises to exploit international market with technological advantages.
In 2021, the development of service outsourcing in China has made brilliant achievements. In terms of industrial scale, in 2021, Chinese enterprises undertook 2134.1 billion yuan of service outsourcing contracts and 1497.2 billion yuan of implementation, with a year-on-year increase of 25.4% and 23.6% respectively. Among them, the contract value of undertaking offshore service outsourcing exceeded 1 trillion yuan for the first time, reaching 1129.5 billion yuan and 860 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 16.0% and 17.8% respectively.
From the perspective of business structure, the implementation amount of undertaking offshore information technology outsourcing (ITO), business process outsourcing (BPO) and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) were 363.1 billion yuan, 130.8 billion yuan and 366.1 billion yuan respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 13.3%, 11.1% and 25.3% respectively. Among them, offshore service outsourcing businesses such as management consulting services, construction machinery maintenance services, new energy technology R & D services, e-commerce platform services, information technology solution services, industrial design services, pharmaceutical and Biotechnology R & D services grew rapidly, with a year-on-year increase of 141.8%, 93.9%, 90.4%, 43.3%, 41.2%, 37.7% and 24.7% respectively.
From the perspective of regional layout, 37 service outsourcing demonstration cities in China have undertaken a total of 959.1 billion yuan of offshore service outsourcing contracts and 733.6 billion yuan of implementation, accounting for 84.9% and 85.3% of the national total respectively. The contract value of offshore service outsourcing undertaken by the Yangtze River Delta is 510 billion yuan and the executed value is 402.2 billion yuan, accounting for 46.0% and 46.8% of the national total respectively.
From the perspective of international market, the implementation amount of offshore service outsourcing undertaken by the mainland from the United States, Hong Kong and the European Union was RMB 1994 billion, 145.6 billion and 115.4 billion respectively, accounting for 53.5% of the implementation amount of offshore service outsourcing in the mainland, with a year-on-year increase of 28.6%, 21.5% and 18.6% respectively. China has undertaken one belt, one road, and 226 billion 100 million yuan offshore service outsourcing contract, with an implementation amount of 161 billion 600 million yuan, up 25.7% and 18.7% respectively over the same period.
In addition, service outsourcing continues to play an important role in attracting employment. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, by the end of December 2021, China’s service outsourcing industry had absorbed 13.95 million employees, an increase of 8% year-on-year, including 8.98 million with university degree or above, accounting for 64.3%. From January to December, the service outsourcing industry added 1.04 million employees, including 780000 with university degree or above, accounting for 74.9%.
