□ our reporter Meng Ni
In the context of the vigorous development of the global digital economy, a strong “Chinese power” is rising.
The Research Report on the development trend of China and global digital trade in 2022 recently released by the forward looking Industry Research Institute shows that digital trade has become the focus of a new round of competition among major countries. As one of the top five countries in the global digital trade scale, China’s digital trade has broad prospects for development.
The overall scale of China’s digital service trade shows an upward trend, from US $164.84 billion in 2011 to US $293.99 billion in 2020, with an average annual compound growth rate of 6.6%. According to the prediction of the Ministry of Commerce, by 2025, the total import and export volume of China’s digitized service trade will exceed US $400 billion, accounting for about 50% of the total service trade.
This is closely related to China’s successive introduction of a series of policies and measures to vigorously develop digital trade in recent years. In April 2020, the Ministry of Commerce and other departments jointly identified 12 parks including Beijing Centergate Technologies (Holding) Co.Ltd(000931) Software Park as national digital service export bases. Relying on this, Zhejiang and Beijing are making every effort to build a digital trade demonstration area. In addition, in 2021, “digital trade” was included in the “14th five year plan” for the development of service trade for the first time, which defined the focus and path of China’s Digital Trade Development in the future. In this year’s government work report, it is proposed to expand high-level opening-up, promote the steady development of foreign trade and foreign investment, innovate and develop service trade and digital trade, and promote the implementation of the negative list of cross-border service trade.
From the perspective of development pattern, at present, the development level of China’s digital trade is strong in the East, weak in the west, strong in the South and weak in the north. The development of digital trade needs good Internet, logistics and other infrastructure as support, and is closely related to the level of regional economic development.
Accordingly, the report believes that at present, China should vigorously promote the development of Digital Trade and encourage local governments to try first. When promoting the development of digital trade, all localities should find the right position, give full play to their own characteristics, combine their own resources, make full use of local advantages, and achieve high-quality development according to local conditions. At the same time, they should also actively participate in regional coordination, build a digital trade ecosystem, and finally achieve national concerted efforts, differentiated breakthroughs and coordinated development.
Beijing has performed well in the development of digital trade. The export of telecommunications, computer and information services is the largest source of surplus in Beijing’s service trade, and digital content is the advantageous field for Beijing to develop digital trade. At the same time, Beijing is also the first batch of service outsourcing demonstration cities and the national cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone.
According to several measures of Beijing Municipality on promoting the high-quality development of digital trade, by 2025, the import and export scale of digital trade in Beijing will reach 150 billion US dollars, accounting for 25% of the total import and export volume of the city; Cultivate a number of leading digital trade enterprises with global digital technology influence, digital resource allocation power and digital rule voice.
Looking ahead, the report believes that opportunities and challenges coexist in the development of China’s digital trade. In terms of opportunities, digital trade is an important engine to promote global economic recovery and growth. Against the background that the global economic recovery is less than expected, digital trade has become a prominent highlight of Global trade and economic growth. China’s policy also clearly proposes to vigorously develop digital trade. The rapid popularization and application of emerging digital technologies and the gradual improvement of digital trade rules have also brought good opportunities for the development of digital trade. In terms of challenges, digital trade belongs to a new trade format. With the in-depth development of digital and digital economy, there are still some risks in the process of cross-border transactions. Countries have not reached a complete consensus on digital trade rules, the global digital governance system has not been formed, the problem of digital security still exists, the role of digital talents is becoming more and more prominent, and the gap of digital talents will become larger and larger.
In this context, how should the government, industry and enterprises act? The report also gives relevant suggestions:
From the government level, we should strengthen the top-level design, consolidate the institutional work of the development of digital trade, participate in the formulation of international digital trade rules, continue to promote the pilot of digital trade, strengthen the ability of digital governance, promote industrial upgrading, strengthen industrial cooperation, and enhance the development momentum of China’s digital trade.
From the perspective of industry, the development of digital trade will accelerate the digital transformation process of various industries. The digital transformation of manufacturing industry includes the digital visualization of the whole process of product design, production and manufacturing, logistics and transportation; Cross border e-commerce will develop towards supply chain coordination and integration; The demand and trade scale of digital content and digital services will rise; The application of financial technology will be more and more extensive.
From the enterprise level, compared with small and medium-sized enterprises, large enterprises have the economic advantages brought by the development scale, while small and medium-sized enterprises rely more on the comprehensive support provided by innovative technology, business environment improvement, finance and trade, e-commerce platforms and so on to integrate into the global value chain. Digital trade can reduce costs and increase efficiency for small and medium-sized enterprises, expand market opportunities, and promote enterprises to accelerate digital manufacturing.
